A Different Beginning
by draconisVulpini
Summary: Naruto was five when he found a kitten. When Sakura was six, Anko found her crying outside of the Academy. When Sasuke was nine, he was sent to the Sand Village for a few years as a political agreement.
1. Prologue

Naruto sighed as he threw his coat over the back of his chair and sat down. Sometimes he wondered why he thought his job would be cool, usually when he had to sit down and do paperwork. Still, he didn't regret becoming Hokage at all. He _loved_ his job, because it allowed him to unconditionally protect everyone he cared for. The massive amount of paperwork was absolutely worth it.

Standing to his left, his best (and favorite, but don't tell Hound) ABNU, a woman with wild pink hair that was shaved on either side of her head in a Mohawk, tapped his desk in warning. Someone was coming down the hallway, and that person was _not_ happy.

The door slammed open, and a dark haired man stormed in.

"What is the meaning of this?" he asked, brandishing a handful of crinkled papers.

Naruto grinned. "Jonin sensei application forms!"

The man glared at him, eyes blazing red with three black pupils in each.

"Oh, c'mon, Sasuke," Naruto said, throwing his arms into the air, "I told you I'd make sure all three of us became jonin sensei!"

This made his favorite ANBU pause. "Excuse me?"

Naruto grinned wider, "oh, didn't I tell you? All three of us are gonna get genin teams!"

"_Naruto."_

"Yes Sakura-chan?"

The ANBU cracked her knuckles. "Meet me at the usual spot in an hour."

She vanished, and Naruto gulped nervously.

A calico cat meowed from his desk.

"Yeah, I know I'm fucked. Thanks for your words of wisdom, Kitty," Naruto said to her.

Sasuke snorted. "I'll be there too. I love seeing you get your ass kicked. And you deserve it, for pulling this bullshit. You know I didn't want a team- I barely have time to make sure my medic recruits are being taught correctly, let alone time to teach three green brats."

Naruto shrugged, "sorry, but I had to sign us all up. Like, its law. You don't have to pass anyone, you know. I bet Kakashi-sensei would let you use his bells if you want."

Sasuke raised an eyebrow. "Oh, and then what test will you do?"

Naruto shrugged. "I dunno yet. Well, we might as well get going, you know? I'd hate to keep Sakura-chan waiting. Are you gonna join the fight?"

"Absolutely not," Sasuke replied immediately, "the last time we went in a free for all, I lost two brand new puppets to Sakura's fists. Never again.

_okay hello you all, i've recently gotten back into Naruto after YEARS of ignoring its existence. i'm rereading it right now, but i'm only at 226 right now, so i'm gonna apologize ahead of time if your favorites dont show up. i know a handful of things that've happened, but i'm kind of writing this blind. anyway, i hope you enjoyed this and that you'll continue to enjoy as i update throughout the rest of the month! i'm hoping to finish this by november 30th, since i'm doing it for nanowrimo. updates won't be daily, but as soon as the next chapter is finished. _


	2. Chapter 1

Naruto was five when he found the kitten.

It was a mangy little thing, and barely fit into even his small hands. It was mottled black and orange, except for a little white splotch on its chest. It hadn't opened its eyes yet.

He didn't know what to do, so he rushed to the Hokage's office, and showed him the kitten.

"Naruto… it's half dead already," the Hokage tried to gently explain, "I'm not sure how long she will last without her mother."

Naruto, ever stubborn, demanded, "Well it's for sure gonna die if you don't help it!"

Reluctantly, the Hokage gave in. "Fox-san, please bring Naruto to the Inuzuka animal clinic. Tell them to bill me for any expenses, even if she has to be put down."

Naruto looked up at the thin, dark haired ANBU with the white and orange mask hopefully. Fox inclined his head, and Naruto felt like he was smiling.

Before he realized it, he was standing inside a room that looked like the entrance to a hospital.

"What's wrong, ANBU-san?" the teenager at the front desk asked, "Is one of Kakashi-san's dogs hurt again?"

Fox shook his head and motioned to Naruto.

The teen hopped over the desk, and crouched in front of Naruto.

He shied away from her. He wasn't used to people reacting kindly to him, except for the Hokage and the ANBU, of course.

"What's up, little man? Did you bring me a stray to fix up?" she asked softly.

Naruto, in response, brought the kitten down from where he was cradling her against his chest.

"Miss, I found this kitten and it looks really sick!" his eyes started to water, "Hokage-jii-san said she could die!"

The teenager sucked in a breath. "Well, she does look sick, doesn't she? She's also really young. I can fix her being sick, no problem, but…"

Naruto stared at her hopefully.

The teen shrugged and continued, "Well, her mom probably abandoned her. She's too little to survive on her own. She looks like she's barely a week old, so she'll have to be fed every three and a half hours."

Naruto nodded determinedly. "I can do it!"

The teen raised her eyebrow and looked up at Fox. Fox shrugged in reply, but nodded.

"…well, if you're certain, I can set you up with some supplies and give you a demonstration, along with some instructions. Can you read?"

Naruto shook his head.

Fox spoke up for the first time. "I will assist him for the rest of the week. Hound will assist him for the week after that."

The teenager nodded. "Okay. Oh, did I even introduce myself? I'm Hana Inuzuka. And you are?"

"Naruto Uzumaki!"

She smiled at him warmly, and stood to collect the supplies she would need.

* * *

><p>It is two months later, and Naruto was slipping inside and over the counter of the Inuzuka clinic. Kitty was riding on his shoulder, her tiny but very sharp kitten claws digging into the fabric and occasionally his skin.<p>

Kiba's cousin, Sasaki, was manning the counter, and pointedly ignored him. Naruto generally made trouble for anyone that wasn't Hana.

"Hana-nee-chan!" Naruto stage-whispered through the halls, "Hana-nee-chan!"

To his left, in one of the examination rooms, Hana replied, "in here, Naruto!"

He bound in, and stopped in his tracks, staring into the singular eye of a large black and grey dog. It had an eye-patch over one eye, and an intelligent look in the other.

"Ah, mom, this is the kid I was talking about!" Hana said.

Naruto looked up.

And up.

This new woman was tall, but had the tell-tale red fangs on her cheeks that mark her as an Inuzuka. She looked down at Naruto, and smirked a little.

"This is the kid who fed a kitten chakra?" she asked her daughter, "How's he manage that? He's tiny!"

Naruto bristled, and Kitty's fur raised threateningly.

This made the woman laugh loudly. "I see! I suppose it was an accident, then?"

Hana shrugged. "I suppose so. I can't think that a five year old- well, one that isn't Itachi or Kakashi-san- that could use chakra intentionally so young."

The woman nodded, and crouched down to his level like Hana had for him two months before.

"Tell you what, kid," she said, "Hana here wants me to teach you how to use your cute little ninja cat there like I teach my kids how to use their pups properly. I'm not so sure I want to be giving away clan secrets like that."

"So?" Naruto demanded, "I didn't ask for your help, Hana-nee-chan did! Get to the point!"

The woman grinned. "Alright kid, the point is, I won't help you until you impress me. I'll leave it up to you how you're gonna do that. And trust me, you'll want help training a ninja animal."

She stood, and walked out of the room, the giant wolf-dog following at her heels.

Hana coughed. "That's my mom. Her name's Tsume Inuzuka, and she's the leader of the Inuzuka clan."

Naruto grinned. "How do you think I could impress her?"

"Hmmm…." Hana made a show of tapping her chin thoughtfully. "Well, you're pretty good at playing pranks, aren't you?"

Naruto stared at her for a minute, and Hana can almost picture the light bulb in his head turning on. He gave her a wide grin, and saluted before dashing off.

She shook her head at his antics.

* * *

><p>Naruto quietly talked to Kitty the entire time he was preparing his pranks.<p>

"So, here's what we're gonna do," he explained while putting together a smoke bomb that will be activated by a trip wire, "first, you're gonna scout ahead. Don't make no noise if there's anyone in her office when we get there, but if it's empty, meow at me, okay?"

Kitty blinked and meowed.

"Yes! Just like that! Then I'll come in, and paint all over the wall with the door. Remember, don't touch her desk! I bet she's like Hokage-Jii-san and doesn't like that. We're trying to 'impress' her, not fuck up her work!"

Kitty blinked at him and purred.

"Right. Well, then I'm gonna put this to the side of her desk, and the tripwire's gonna be under it! So when she sits down and scoots in to do work, the bomb'll go off! And then when the smoke clears, she'll see the painting I made for her!"

Kitty rubbed her face against his cheek.

"How's she gonna be impressed? Well, cause I got into her office without her 'spectin' it!"

Kitty purred again.

* * *

><p>The prank went off without a hitch, and Naruto made sure to be lurking around the Inuzuka clinic so that Tsume could find him easily.<p>

Sure enough, right about noon, Tsume burst into the examination room where Hana was trying to teach Naruto some basic animal first aid.

"You brat!" she shouted, snatching him from his perch on the table.

"Mom!"

Naruto cackled, and asked, "So how'd you like the painting I made for you, Inuzuka-san?"

Tsume growled, and Hana's heart dropped to her feet. What had Naruto done?

"If you're talking about that picture of Kuromaru with a pirate hat," Tsume snarled, then paused.

Tension hung in the air for a moment.

Hana was worried that her mom would try to kill Naruto.

Naruto was worried that, maybe, she hadn't liked it.

Tsume held her snarled face for as long as she could before breaking out in a wide grin and smashing Naruto to her chest.

"It's the cutest picture I've ever seen of Kuromaru! I'm going to have a photograph taken before I hire a genin team to repaint my wall! Congrats, kid, you've sufficiently impressed me!"

* * *

><p>When Sakura was six, she was found outside of the Academy, crying softly.<p>

An older girl was the one who found her, but hesitated before approaching. She wasn't well liked, after all. But she did approach, just before a blonde girl spotted the crying girl.

"What's up kiddo?" the older girl asked quietly.

Sakura sniffled. "The other girls- they said my forehead was ugly."

The older girl crouched down, and tilted Sakura's head up. They stared at each other for a while, examining each other.

The older girl snorted, and let go of Sakura's chin. "I don't see it. You're cute as hell, kiddo. They're just jealous."

She pushed Sakura's hair back from her forehead, and took a bobby pin out of her own hair to pin it in place.

"There. Don't let them get you down, kid."

Then the girl stood, brushed off her knees, and walked away without another word.

Sakura's tears dried on her face as she stared after her in shock.

* * *

><p>Three weeks later, the girl found Sakura staring angrily at a chunk of pink hair in her hand.<p>

"Whoa, kiddo, what happened?"

Sakura looked up. "One of the girls put gum in my hair during recess. I couldn't brush it out, so I cut it out."

The older girl raised her eyebrows. "Well, that's one way to do it."

Sakura shrugged, and looked back down.

The older girl paused thoughtfully.

"Hey, kiddo, how about I walk you home? I kinda wanna ask your mom something."

"Well," Sakura hesitated. "I'm not really supposed to talk to strangers, let alone bring them home… Mom would be upset…"

The girl thrust her hand out, "Hi, my name's Anko Mitarashi! I'm a Leaf chunin! And you are?"

"Sakura Haruno, Academy student."

"So," Anko said, "do you think I'm a stranger now?"

Sakura smiled, and reached out for Anko's hand. "My house is this way, Anko-nee-chan."

Once in front of Sakura's house, Anko was hit by a wave of nervousness, but plowed through that, and knocked firmly on the Harunos' door.

The door opened after a short pause. "Yes, how can I help you…?"

Anko bowed politely. "My name is Anko Mitarashi. I found Sakura after school had ended, and I would like to ask if I can cut her hair."

The man looked down at Sakura and cringed. "Yikes, hon, what happened?"

Sakura looked at the ground angrily. "A girl put gum in my hair during recess."

Her father hissed sympathetically. "Well, you'll have to ask your mom, so why don't you and Miss Anko come inside? Your mom's having a good day today, by the way."

Sakura beamed and grabbed Anko's hand again, trying to drag her and only succeeding because Anko allowed it.

Anko was led into a large room, with a fair sized bed surrounded by medical equipment.

"Mom! Can Anko-nee-chan cut my hair?"

The woman in the bed was frail, and propped up on a mound of pillows. She looked over at Sakura's voice and her eye widened in shock when she saw her daughter's hair.

"Sakura-chan! Your hair!"

Sakura tried to toss her hair over her shoulder, but failed, because it was the side that had been maimed. "Oh, yeah, one of the girls at school put gum in my hair and I couldn't comb it out so I cut it out! Anko-nee-chan offered to cut my hair for me! Can she, pleeeeaaase?"

Sakura's mom looked Anko up and down.

"What were you planning, Anko-san?" her mother asked coolly.

Anko shrugged, "I was gonna let your kid pick."

"She can be indecisive."

"I woulda given her a Mohawk then."

Sakura's mom paused, and after a minute, burst into laughter. That quickly turned into coughing, and she stopped immediately.

"What's a Mohawk?" Sakura asked.

Anko pulled out a pen and paper from her pocket and sketched out a rough drawing.

"…so both of the sides are bald?"

Anko snorted. "Not quite, but almost."

Sakura tilted her head. "Why this kind of haircut? It looks like a boy's haircut."

Anko noticed Sakura's mom staring at her intently, clearly curious herself.

"Well," Anko said, "there's two steps to making people stop picking on you. Step one: look too scary to f- mess with. Step two: be too scary to mess with."

"And you'd help her with step one. What about step two?" Sakura's mom asked.

Uncomfortably, Anko replied, "I could help her with both if she wants me to, and if you don't mind, but I can leave if-"

"Nonsense!" Sakura's mom said, waving her hand idly, "stay, at least for dinner. And if Sakura wants a Mohawk, give her one, if you can."

* * *

><p>The next day, Sakura walked into her academy classroom with her head held high and both sides of her head free of hair.<p>

Nobody spoke to her. Nobody teased her.

She loved it.

It didn't last of course, and that was where part two of Anko's "get people to stop picking on you" plan came in.

She'd had her new haircut for a week, and finally one of the girls in her class decided to say something.

"You know," the girl drawled, "your hair's even stupider now. I can't believe you think you look cute like that. You look like a boy!"

Sakura serenely ignored her.

"Hey, did you hear me! Pay attention!"

Sakura continued to ignore her.

Before the girl could try again, the instructor ordered them to pair up for taijutsu practice.

The girl grabbed onto Sakura's elbow and smiled at the instructor. "I'll fight Sakura-chan today!"

The instructor, who had seen Anko picking the girl up after school, snorted. "Sakura-chan?"

Sakura looked up at the instructor intently.

"I know who you've been training with. Go easy on her, yeah?"

Sakura smiled while the other girl spluttered incoherently.

The instructor decided to leave Sakura's fight for last, and to use her as a lesson for the other girls.

All of the other fights went with just few bruises and one small scrape. Honestly, the instructor had been trying to get the girls to take this practice seriously. It was hard, though, because most of the other instructors went easy on them because they were girls.

Finally, though, Sakura and the other girl's fight was up.

"I'm gonna pound your face into the dirt, Sakura-chan," the other girl sneered.

Sakura grinned widely. "You can try."

"Begin."

The other girl rushed forward, fist flying for Sakura's face. This was a move Anko had drilled her into avoiding properly, and she swayed out of the way easily. This girl was no match for Anko on speed.

Sakura allowed the girl to recover from her stumble, and the other girl kicked at her. Sakura blocked the kick with her forearm, and stepped into the other girl's space.

One solid punch to the ribs, and the other girl was on the ground in tears.

The instructor applauded while the rest of the girls stared in shock.

"Great job Sakura! Keep it up, and I can graduate you into fighting the boys with Hinata soon!"

Sakura beamed, and when school let out, she rushed to Anko's side and immediately told her how she'd kicked ass that day.

"Great job, kiddo," Anko told her warmly, afterwards, and ruffled her long Mohawk. "How about I treat you to dango today, since you did such a kick ass job? And then I'll show you some more moves you can use during the next taijutsu practice!"

"Hell yes!"

Anko was willing to admit she really liked this kid. She was also willing to admit that maybe her village confinement status wasn't such a bad thing, after all, since it let her train Sakura regularly, without having to stop for a mission.

* * *

><p>Sasuke was nine years old when the Hokage asked him to accompany him to the Sand Village.<p>

"Why?" Sasuke asked quietly.

The Hokage set his pipe down on his desk. "Do you really want to know?"

Sasuke nodded.

"I feel like here, you will be coddled too much. The Sand Village has a more vigorous training program than we do- but they turn out less ninja than we do as well. I heard that you want to be strong to defeat your brother, so I think you might benefit from this."

"That can't be it," Sasuke replied. "You wouldn't send away the last of any clan just for them to get stronger. What's the other reason?"

The Hokage smiled. "Clever, you are. You're right. You getting stronger is not my only reason. I also wish to solidify the alliance with a show of trust on both of our parts, and I wish to try to help a young man who belongs to the Sand Village."

Sasuke said nothing, and waited for the Hokage to continue.

"I was last in Sand several weeks ago, and I came across a boy your age, who had no friends, and was looked at as a monster. The Kazekage and I have worked out a temporary trade agreement: the last Uchiha for his tormented son."

"I see," Sasuke said, "if it's temporary, when does this trade end?"

"It's just for three years. You'll be back in time for graduation, Sasuke-kun."

* * *

><p>It was a simple job for Sasuke to pack. He only brought his clothes and his weapons, and some food to eat while they travelled. The Hokage had said that he would be completely provided for there, so there wasn't much need for much else.<p>

He met the Hokage and his ANBU team at the gate to the Village, and then they were off.

It was a tiring four day journey, and Sasuke was carried by one of the ANBU for most of it. Even so, he was exhausted by the time they reached the Sand Village gates, and slept through the initial meeting of the two Kages.

When he woke next, there was two pairs of curious eyes staring at him. He yelped and flung himself backwards, and fell off of the bed.

"Whoa!" one of the children who had been staring at him said, waving his arms frantically, "sorry, sorry! Are you okay?"

He nodded mutely, staring at them incredulously.

The girl rubbed the back of her head, "sorry, we didn't mean to startle you. Just, dad said that you were from Leaf and we wanted to see what was different about Leaf people from Sand people."

Sasuke snorted, and stood up, brushing off his clothes (he was still in his normal clothes, having not packed pajamas).

"Er….," the boy said nervously, and bowed politely, "My name's Kankuro!"

The girl bowed as well, "And I'm his older sister Temari. It's very nice to meet you."

Sasuke was a little confused. Usually people of the same age back home shook hands when they greeted you, and bowed to older people when greeting them. But he wasn't back home right now, so he bowed in return.

"Sasuke Uchiha."

Temari beamed. "Alright, we'll meet you in the front foyer! Get changed, cause dad wants us to show you around the village!"

* * *

><p>Sasuke had been living in the Sand village for nearly a month when he stumbled upon Kankuro playing with a small puppet.<p>

He stayed quiet, and tucked himself into a dark corner while he observed.

"C'mon you stupid thing, work! Sensei said that one frickin' string should work for a puppet this small!"

Kankuro had six thin, glowing blue strings attached to the puppet. Chakra strings, Sasuke realized, and intensely wanted to learn this technique. He wasn't sure anyone would teach him, though, since Kankuro hadn't said anything about learning it, and he'd never seen it before, which led him to believe it might be a secret technique of the Sand Village.

Sasuke stayed a while longer, trying to get an idea of what Kankuro was doing to make the chakra string, before wandering off to find a quiet place to try it out.

It took him nearly twenty minutes to figure out how to make one string, though he noticed his was much wider than Kankuro's string. He took another twenty minutes to thin it down, and by then he was very tired, having wasted a lot of chakra trying to form the string in the first place.

He went to bed.

The next day, he returned to his quiet hiding place as soon as he was able, and continued practicing. He never noticed the old woman watching him from a nearby rooftop.

By the end of the week, he was able to attach six strings to a small puppet that he had found abandoned and collecting dust under Kankuro's bed.

Applause startled him, and his strings broke, the puppet falling to the ground limply.

"Who are you?" he demanded, spinning around.

An old woman was perched on the edge of a roof. "How long ago did you first see this technique, son?"

Sasuke grit his teeth, but answered, "About a week ago."

She nodded, grinning. "Alright kid, you're pretty impressive. What's your name?"

"Sasuke."

"My name's Chiyo. I said before that I was done with this village, but I think I can make an exception for you, since you figured this out all on your own," the old woman continued, "how about we meet here about this time from now on? I'll teach you some killer techniques."

Sasuke was unable to resist, and agreed readily.

For several months, Chiyo trained Sasuke in the arts of puppetry in secret. She demanded that he keep quiet about her until she was ready. He didn't mind, since he was being trained either way.

* * *

><p>Two years into his stay, Chiyo didn't arrive. Sasuke worried, but thought very little of it.<p>

Then she failed to show up the next day, and the day after that. He waited a week, practicing what she taught him while he waited for her, before he decided to go searching for her, in case she had died of old age.

He found her by accident- Kankuro had dared him to climb a plateau with chakra, and he had taken the dare.

"Chiyo-sensei," Sasuke said, surprised when he saw her.

She huffed and turned away from him.

Instead of leaving like she clearly wanted him to do, he shakily (the climb had been pretty tough, even with his superb chakra control) walked over and keeled next to her, waiting quietly for her to talk to him.

"You didn't say you were from the Leaf Village," she spat after a few minutes.

He shrugged, "you didn't ask."

"I hate the Leaf Village," she replied, with less venom. It was more like she was stating a fact than an opinion.

Sasuke shrugged again, but said nothing.

"Why wouldn't you tell me that you were from the Leaf!?" Chiyo demanded.

"Because," he hesitated, "I didn't think it would matter, since _you_ were training me. I looked you up, you know. I figured the previous leader of the Puppet corps would have some leeway in teaching foreign students."

She snorted. "Yeah, I won't get in trouble, and I could get you out of trouble if I wanted."

He said nothing.

After a long silence, Chiyo sighed and turned towards him. "Alright, son, show me how far you've gotten in building that weasel puppet of yours."

Sasuke nodded and fished the blueprints from his pocket.

Chiyo still hated the Leaf, and wasn't quite sure why she was still teaching this brat, but she had a feeling that if she didn't, things could turn out very bad for the poor kid.


	3. Chapter 2

Iruka looked at his class with pride. So many had passed the academy test, Including Naruto! Granted, Naruto passed in a slightly different way, Iruka mused, adjusting his new headband a little.

"Alright, you all!" he shouted over class' chatter, "Quiet down so I can announce your teams!"

Naruto leaned forward eagerly, nearly dislodging Kitty from his shoulder. Sasuke, to his left, mentally crossed his fingers that none of his fangirls would end up on his team. Sakura, to Naruto's right, pleaded with an invisible god to give her a kick ass team.

"Team Ten: Ino Yamanaka, Shikamaru Nara, and Choji Akimichi."

Sasuke closed his eyes in relief. There was one girl crossed off the list.

"Team Nine is still in rotation…. Team Eight: Kiba Inuzuka, Hinata Hyuuga, and Shino Aburame."

Naruto slumped, pouting slightly. Kiba would have been a fun teammate.

"Team Seven: Naruto Uzumaki, Sakura Haruno, and Sasuke Uchiha."

Boos and hisses sounded out from around the room, all from Sasuke's fangirls, and he let out a small, relieved sigh.

Sakura, ever one to make use of an opportunity given, turned and taunted all of Sasuke's fangirls with a rude hand gesture before turning back and leaning over Naruto's desk to offer Sasuke a fist bump.

He looked at her curiously, ignoring Iruka as he continued with Team assignments.

Naruto whispered, "It's a fist bump, dumbass."

"They didn't do this in the Sand Village," Sasuke whispered back.

Naruto rolled his eyes and touched his knuckles to Sakura's. "Fist bump. It's pretty simple, bastard."

Sasuke glared at him, but gently returned Sakura's fist bump.

"Alright! Now that assignments are over, I have one last piece of advice for you all before your new Sensei get here," Iruka said, capturing everyone's attention again.

"The way of the ninja is a tough one," he said, "You _will_ kill. Some of you may be killed. Rely on your teammates, though, and you'll be able to survive anything, and achieve your goals. We work in four man teams for a reason, kids."

Then Iruka smiled, and the tension left the room again.

"That said, wait here. Your Sensei will show up," Iruka glanced to Naruto apologetically, "eventually."

* * *

><p>The other teams trickled out one by one, until only Team Seven remained.<p>

After about an hour, Naruto huffed. "Alright, this asshole's super late! I'm gonna prank him, and then we're gonna play go fish while we wait."

Sakura laughed. "I can't wait to see this."

Naruto waved at her dismissively. "I'm not doing anything complicated. Just a trip wire connected to a smoke bomb that stains clothes."

Sasuke snorted. "That's 'nothing complicated'?"

"Well, yeah. Rube Goldberg pranks are fun and all, but they take hours to set up. This won't take five minutes."

Naruto planted two kunai on either side of the door, tied one end of a thin string to one end, threaded the other end through the hoop on the kunai, and attached it to the pin of the smoke bomb.

"Okay," Naruto said, brushing his hands off, "this is a pretty small bomb, but the smoke smells like ass and will dye the shit out of any kind of cloth, so we should move to the back of the room."

Sakura and Sasuke stood and moved to the back corner of the room. Naruto joined them and pulled out a deck of cards.

Their sensei was another two hours late, and by then, they'd eaten their lunches and graduated from go fish to poker, using favors as chips.

(Naruto was winning by a landslide, and Sakura was tied with Sasuke.)

Kitty meowed, and Naruto laughed. "Alright, sensei is outside the door, gimmie your cards and let's watch the show."

"How do you know he's outside the door?" Sasuke asked.

Naruto motioned to Kitty with a card, "Kitty's got super good ears. She can even hear ANBU most of the time!"

Sasuke nodded thoughtfully.

Sakura cracked her knuckles, "well, whatever! I bet we've got a badass sensei!"

"Why?" Naruto asked.

Grinning, Sakura answered, "cause Anko-nee-chan told me which of the jonin are getting teams this year, and there's only one guy who'd be this late!"

Naruto tucked his cards away and leaned towards her eagerly. Sasuke also stared at her intently.

"His name's Kakashi Hatake. He's known as 'Copy-Nin Kakashi', and he's supposedly mastered over a thousand techniques! He made chunin at age _six._"

Sasuke leaned back, and Naruto hissed.

"So yeah," Sakura said smugly, "we've probably got a badass sensei."

A quiet 'click' broke the silence left after Sakura's explanation, and then there was a muted explosion, and when the three of them looked to the door, they saw a dying plume of smoke and a jonin in an orange stained vest.

"My first impression," Kakashi said, "I don't know. Meet me on the roof."

And then he vanished in a puff of smoke.

"Showoff," Sasuke muttered.

* * *

><p>When the three of them made it to the roof, the saw Kakashi in an unstained vest, perched on the rail fence that prevented dumb kids from falling off the roof and dying. He had a small, orange, paperback book in his hands.<p>

He motioned to them with the book and said, "Names, likes, dislikes, hobbies, goals. You first, blondie."

"I'm Naruto Uzumaki, I like ramen, Kitty, and dogs! I hate waiting around! My hobbies are playing pranks and sneaking around! My goal is to become Hokage!"

Sasuke smirked and mumbled under his breath.

"What? You got somethin' to say to me!?" Naruto demanded.

Sasuke shook his head, "you just reminded me of my old sensei. She hates waiting for people."

Kakashi coughed pointedly. "Next, pinkie."

"Sakura Haruno; I like snakes, Anko-nee-chan, and candy. I hate when people underestimate me because I'm a girl. My hobby is really just training, and my goal is to become the strongest ninja in the village!"

"Don't you mean kunoichi?" Kakashi asked idly.

She shook her head vehemently. "I mean _ninja._ Not just kunoichi."

"Alright. Your turn, Quiet One."

"My name is Sasuke Uchiha. I like tomatoes. I hate traitors. My hobbies are building puppets, and my goal," he paused, then corrected himself, "My ambition is to kill a certain man."

Kakashi nodded. They weren't quite what he was expecting, but he still didn't want to take them too seriously just yet.

"Alright, now that I know a little bit about you all, I have some dreadful news for you-"

Sakura snorted. "If you mean that we're not officially genin yet, Anko-nee-chan spoiled that for me. We have to pass a secondary test that's set at the discretion of the new sensei blah, blah, blah."

"Wait, what!?" Naruto yelped, "I thought we just had to pass the academy test!"

Sighing, Kakashi patted the air to try to calm them down, "oh relax. You'll just have to sit through some remedial classes for a semester or two when you fail."

"What do you mean 'when'?" Sasuke asked, narrowing his eyes.

Kakashi smiled at them- or at least, that's what they thought he was doing. They could only see one of his eyes after all.

"I mean, this next test has a failure rate of sixty-six percent."

Naruto's jaw dropped.

"You're _kidding me!"_ Sakura said.

Sasuke's jaw clenched.

"Anyway," Kakashi continued cheerfully, "meet me at training ground seven at six hundred hours tomorrow. And, you might want to skip breakfast. Vomit is pretty gross to clean up, you know?"

And then he vanished in a puff of smoke. Again.

* * *

><p>The next morning, Naruto and Kitty arrived at the training grounds at six o'clock on the dot, laden with a heavy and overstuffed bag.<p>

Sakura arrived next, with some new accessories: knee-high boots, bandages wrapped around her hands, and a long sleeved mesh undershirt.

Sasuke arrived moments after Sakura, with something furry under one arm, and a bandoleer of scrolls thrown over his shoulder.

"The hell is that, Sasuke?" Naruto asked, pointing at the furry thing under his arm.

Sasuke dropped it, and held a hand over it. It stood up on its back feet, and presented itself to Naruto and Sakura.

"This is Weasel. He's my oldest functioning battle puppet," Sasuke explained.

"Neat," Sakura deadpanned, "you fight with a stuffed animal."

Sasuke glared at her. "He has a metal and wood skeleton, and he's filled with projectile weapons. He is not a stuffed animal."

Sakura held her hands up in a gesture of defeat. "Sorry, sorry. Didn't mean to insult it. Just looks like a stuffed animal back when I was little, is all. I'm sure it's much scarier than it looks."

Naruto laughed nervously. "Okay, let's not fight! How about another game of poker?"

Sasuke shook his head, and Sakura backed away, holding her hands in front of herself defensively.

"No way! You kicked our asses yesterday! I'm never playing cards with you again!"

"Yeah, I don't like losing that much, either," Sasuke added.

Naruto slumped. "Okay, then."

They settled in to wait quietly. Sasuke took out a scroll and a pencil, and sketched away. Sakura silently went through her katas, and Naruto played game after game of solitaire by himself.

By the time Kakashi arrived, all three of them were glad that they had decided to ignore his warning about skipping breakfast.

"You're LATE!" Naruto shouted, pointing an accusatory finger at Kakashi.

Kakashi rubbed the back of his head. "Sorry, I got lost on the road of life."

"Liar," Sakura spat.

Sasuke said nothing, but glared at Kakashi.

Kakashi unapologetically shrugged off their reactions and clapped his hands giddily.

"Okay, test time!" he reached into his pocket, and produced two small bells. "Your goal is to get one of these from me. Whoever fails to get one will be tied to the post while the winners and I eat lunch in front of them, and will be sent back to the academy."

Naruto and Sakura shouted protests, but Sasuke stayed silent. Something seemed off about that statement to him.

Kakashi waited patiently for his two louder students to stop shouting before he continued, "And if you can't get a bell by noon, you will also fail. Begin!"

The three genin glanced at each other, and dashed off in opposite directions.

* * *

><p>Sasuke stayed near Kakashi, and kept low to the ground. He hadn't quite mastered tree walking the way he'd mastered wall walking, and didn't want to risk falling off and making noise.<p>

He wanted to observe Kakashi, because something didn't quite sound right with his explanation. Only two of them could pass? The Leaf village rarely sent their ninja off on missions in anything less than a three man team…

Sasuke closed his eyes when he realized the point of the test, and quietly wandered off to find his teammates.

* * *

><p>Naruto and Kitty immediately set out to cover as much of his chosen territory in traps as he could. Considering he had a hundred feet of wire, a box full of various types of smoke bombs, three explosive notes, a permanent marker, and a cube of brightly colored sticky notes, he was pretty confident.<p>

One of his basic traps went off, and there was a loud curse.

"Sasuke?" Naruto wondered aloud.

Kitty meowed and trotted away in the direction of Sasuke's shout, disappearing into the foliage.

Naruto tagged along behind her, and found her sitting underneath Sasuke's head. Sasuke was strung up by his foot from a tree branch, and had his arms crossed and a sour look upon his face.

"Naruto, let me down. I need to talk to you," He demanded.

Grinning, Naruto shook his head, "I think you can talk well enough from right there, you know?"

Sasuke glared at him, and said, "The point of this test is teamwork. We cannot defeat a jonin in one on one combat. If all three of us work together, we can do it."

"But he said one of would fail," Naruto pointed out.

"He was probably lying," Sasuke replied, rolling his eyes, "ninjas do that."

"Okay, but what if he wasn't?"

Sasuke sighed, "Well, we might be able to get a bell off of him. It'd be easier with Sakura, though."

Naruto cut the rope holding him up. "Yeah, I don't care. Sakura-chan can handle herself. Did you have a plan in mind?"

"Yes, actually, I do," Sasuke answered, rubbing his ankle.

* * *

><p>Kakashi waited for his genin. He was hoping that they'd just hide out until noon so he could fail them for not trying.<p>

Unfortunately, Naruto burst out of a tree just when things were getting interesting in his novel.

"Hey, Jackass!" Naruto shouted, pointing at him rudely, "give me one of those bells and I'll let you live!"

Kakashi hummed in amusement, and turned the page.

"Did you hear me!? Give me a goddamn bell! I don't have all day, you know!"

Still, Kakashi ignored him.

Naruto huffed and pushed up his sleeves. "Alright, now you're askin' for it. Shadow Clone Technique!"

Seven copies of Naruto appeared, and he motioned them forward with a gesture. The eight of them screamed out a battle cry, and launched themselves at Kakashi as one.

In just a flash, all eight vanished, defeated with one solid strike from Kakashi.

"All of them were Clones?" Kakashi mused aloud. "Hm, that's a little more interesting than I was expecting, to be honest. What else can you come up with, Naruto?"

Kakashi wasn't expecting an answer, but he got one in the form of something furry flying towards him. He easily dodged, but the thing came at him again, and swiped at his throat. He leaned just out of the way of the vicious looking claws, but overbalanced.

While he stabilized himself, the thing swiped at him again, but this time at his waist, where he'd hug the bells.

The furry thing vanished into the bushes with a bell between its claws.

"…huh." Kakashi said, smiling under his mask. Things were looking up for his genin.

* * *

><p>"What the hell, Sasuke!?" Naruto demanded, "you only got one bell!?"<p>

"Shut up," Sasuke snapped, "I was trying to get both, okay? He's a little tougher than he looks! Besides, I _told_ you it would be easier with Sakura!"

"What would be easier with Sakura?"

Both boys froze. They slowly looked up, and saw Sakura perched on a tree branch.

Sasuke was the one who replied, "We got a bell. I told this idiot that if we had you, we would be able to take down Kakashi completely, but he said you could handle yourself."

"Well, he was right," Sakura said, running a hand through her mohawk, "but what's this about the three of us taking down Kakashi completely?"

"Okay, look," Sasuke said, "the point of this test is teamwork. It's not immediately obvious, because he's trying to pit us against each other. But I happen to know that the Leaf Village never works in teams smaller than three, and that's only jonin. Genin teams always, _always_, have three genin and a jonin sensei."

Sakura nodded slowly, "so you're saying that the bells aren't the real objective."

"Yes."

"The real objective is to prove to Kakashi-sensei that we can work together?"

"_Yes."_

Sakura shrugged and dropped down next to them. "Alright, I'm game. What's the plan to get the other bell?"

Naruto grumbled, "I wish you'd said that earlier."

Sasuke gave him a withering glare. "I _did_ say that, moron."

* * *

><p>Kakashi wasn't surprised that it was Sakura who attacked him next. He was a little surprised when she came at him with fairly advanced taijutsu. Then again, she <em>had<em> been tutored by Anko, so in hindsight it wasn't all that shocking.

He felt a presence behind him, and narrowly avoided a kick to the head from Naruto. Instead, Naruto crashed into Sakura, and they wrestled about a bit before managing to untangle themselves.

"Nice try, you two," Kakashi drawled, "but not quite good enough. I still have-"

He reached for the remaining bell to show it off, and came up empty.

To his left, opposite of Sakura and Naruto, he heard a familiar sound: two bells jingling. When he looked, he saw that furry thing that had attacked him before, now with both bells in its claws.

"I see. Tell me how you did it," Kakashi ordered.

"Well, Sasuke came up with the first plan," Naruto admitted, "I distracted you while his weasel puppet got the bell. He was _supposed_ to get both of them, but only got one."

"Then I found them arguing," Sakura continued, "and Sasuke explained that Leaf genin always pass as a three man team, and that the purpose of this test is to gauge our teamwork. So we just did the same thing as his first plan."

Sasuke emerged from the forest. "It worked the first time, didn't it? Don't fix what isn't broken."

Kakashi rubbed his face. "I can't believe I'm saying this but…"

* * *

><p>"… Team Seven passed."<p>

Silence fell upon the rest of the potential jonin instructors.

"Is the world ending?" one asked.

"Might be." Another answered.

The Hokage raised his hand. "That's enough teasing. However, how _did_ they pass your test?"

Kakashi shrugged. "The Uchiha kid's a genius. He figured out the purpose of the test, and talked the other two into it. Actually, they worked together pretty flawlessly, aside from one instance of Naruto being an idiot, of course."

"Ah. That's very good. I have one more question to ask:" the Hokage paused, and set down his pipe, "are you actually going to train them?"

Kakashi rubbed the back of his head, "if they had only passed by the skin of their teeth, I'd have said no. Since they actually passed with flying colors, I suppose I'll have to, won't I?"

The Hokage nodded. "Please do. You cannot imagine how long I spent arguing with the council when I placed those three in a team together. Make them great, Kakashi."

* * *

><p>At the Ichiraku ramen stall, the genin of Team Seven were celebrating.<p>

"When I'm Hokage, you two are gonna be my second in commands!" Naruto declared, waving his chopsticks wildly.

Sakura grinned, "_If_ you become Hokage, you'd better make me your number one ANBU, you got that?"

"Of course Sakura-chan! You'll have to earn it, but I believe in you, one hundred percent! You'll be able to kick anyone's ass! Except mine, of course, cause I'm gonna be Hokage, you know? And Hokages can't get their asses kicked by their subordinates, no way!"

Sasuke allowed himself a smile. He originally hadn't been sure that these two could keep up with him, but after fighting Kakashi together, he was beginning to think that maybe…

Just maybe…

Things would work out.

* * *

><p><em>oh my god i completely forgot about linebreaks im so sorry! i fixed it just now, and i'll remember it from now on<em>


	4. Chapter 3

"We've been a team for three months," Sakura groused, "and we've trained six days a week and done stupid chores disguised as missions five days a week. I am one _hundred_ percent sick of this bullshit, I swear."

Naruto groaned. "I know! The least they could do is give us something better than painting fences, you know!? Like, like, taking out bandits! Or escorting a princess to her homeland!"

Sasuke snorted. "I'll take bandits over princesses any day."

Sakura laughed and said, "You're just saying that cause of your fangirls!"

"Damn right."

Kakashi appeared on the bridge in front of his team. None of them flinched, since he did this every day and they were used to it.

"Hello, my cute little genin!" he said, "who's ready for today's mission?"

"One," Naruto said, "you're late! Two, I'm sick of these stupid chores! Can't we get something better!?"

Kakashi scratched the back of his head. "Well, you could. You'll have to convince the Hokage you can handle it, though."

* * *

><p>The Hokage quietly thought over Team Seven's request before he asked, "Do you three truly think you are prepared for a C-rank mission?"<p>

Sakura stepped forward, "I apologize for my bluntness, Hokage-sama, but I have been trained by Anko Mitarashi since I was six. Naruto was trained by the Inuzuka clan and is a freaking genius with traps. Sasuke lived in the Sand Village for three years and convinced one of their elders to teach him an art that until now, had only been practiced by Sand ninjas. Not to mention, Kakashi-sensei isn't a half bad teacher. I think if any of the rookie teams would be able to handle a C-rank right now, it's us."

The Hokage nodded and looked to Sasuke. "Do you agree with your teammate?"

"I do, Hokage-sama."

He looked to Naruto. "And you?"

"Hell yes, Hokage-jii-san! We can handle whatever you throw at us!"

Kakashi saw the glint in the Hokage's eye and grew a little nervous. The first C-rank almost always went amiss. The phenomenon even had a name: the First C-rank Curse. Every village encountered it, and it served as a bonding point for jonin sensei during the chunin exams every six months.

"Alright then," the Hokage said, delicately picking up a scroll and handing it to Kakashi, "bandit clean-up it is."

Kakashi's eye widened in shock.

Iruka, to the Hokage's left, protested, "Hokage-sama! They're not ready for that yet!"

The Hokage raised his hand before the genin could argue with their old teacher. "I've made up my mind. They say they can handle it, and I believe in them. If they find that they cannot handle it, their jonin sensei will take care of the mission and reap all of the reward, and it will serve as a lesson to them to not overestimate their abilities."

Kakashi insisted upon supervising his team while they packed, and forced all three of them to help each other pack.

Which meant visiting each other's homes.

* * *

><p>Naruto's apartment was closest, so he was first. He led them up several flights of stairs, and warned them to avoid stepping on any cats because "they get really offended and I don't want to have to go couch hunting again."<p>

His was the only occupied apartment on his floor, and swarmed with cats.

"That's Killer, and that's Daffodil, and that's Jasper, and that's Onyx, don't mind Oliver, he's just an attention whore, Diamond, I need to get in that drawer, thank you…"

Sasuke stared incredulously. "How can all of these cats live here?"

"They don't," Naruto replied, "well, they kind of do. They're not all here all the time. I just leave out food and blankets for them to sleep on. They come and go as they please. Cats are like that, you know? The ones I see the most get names, and if one shows up here injured, I bring it to the Inuzuka clinic. Kitty's the only one who really lives here."

Sakura wandered off, and checked his fridge curiously. "How come there's no milk in here? Don't cats like milk?"

"No!" Naruto shouted from his bedroom, "cats are actually allergic to cow milk! Lactose intolerant or something I dunno. I just know they can't have milk."

Sasuke sat down to sketch a cat covered in scars. Some of them even looked like they were from dog teeth, so clearly cats were tougher fighters than they looked. He wondered what kind of things he could install into a cat puppet…

"Doesn't it get cramped here with all of them wandering around?" Sakura asked, staring at her feet as she walked to Naruto's bedroom.

"Nah, you get used to it after a while," Naruto spotted Kakashi reaching for the bottom drawer on his chest of drawers and shouted, "Don't open that!"

Kakashi pulled his hand back, alarmed.

"There's a mama kitty in there, and she doesn't like humans all that much," Naruto explained, pointing to his clawed-up arm, "found that out the hard way."

After that, Kakashi managed to get what Naruto needed packed up into a rather beaten up backpack, and collected Sakura and Sasuke from their wandering and sketching. They moved on to Sakura's house, which was in the civilian district, and slightly closer than the old Uchiha district was to Naruto's house.

* * *

><p>"DAD!" Sakura shouted, "I'M HOME AND HAVE TO PACK FOR A MISSION!"<p>

Sasuke and Naruto flinched from her shouting, and Kitty's ears flattened against her skull.

A muffled voice replied, "That's great hon! Could you do the dishes before you leave, though?"

"SURE!"

Kakashi cleaned out one ear with his pinkie. "Sakura, did you have to shout?"

She nodded. "Dad's sick a lot, so instead of him greeting me at the door, I shout my greeting through the walls. It's the only way I can get him to stay in his damned bed most days."

"He's sick?" Naruto asked, horrified.

Sakura shrugged. "Has been for a while, actually. Since mom died, I guess."

Sasuke was quiet while following his team upstairs and into Sakura's room.

The walls were pink, and all of her furniture was white. Her closet was filled with black and red, with the occasional pink or white garment. Her bed was piled with stuffed animals, and her vanity had a tidy pile of beauty products. In contrast to that, on the top of her dresser she had several rolls of bandages, and there were kunai, shuriken, and senbon everywhere.

"It's a bit of a mess, but…" she shrugged and left it at that.

While Kakashi told her what to pack, Sasuke and Naruto wandered off.

Sasuke ended up in her kitchen, and looked at the dishes in the sink. There were only a pair of plates and a cup, so he pulled off his arm warmers, tucked them into his pockets, and located the dish soap. His quick glance through the main rooms had told him all he needed to know, so he figured he'd make himself useful.

Naruto found himself entranced by the pictures in the living room, and spent the twenty minutes it took Sakura to pack trying to memorize them.

Sasuke's house was last, and he was rather reluctant to reveal to his teammates that he still lived in the old Uchiha complex. Sakura, at least, would know about the Massacre, but Naruto probably wouldn't. Even years later, it was a little painful to hear someone talk about it like it was just an event from history when he _lived_ through it.

Still, Kakashi insisted that Sakura and Naruto come with them.

So he tolerated it.

* * *

><p>"Do not go into any rooms with closed doors," Sasuke ordered them.<p>

He wasn't sure they'd obey, considering Naruto replied with a passive "sure, sure," and Sakura only waved to show she heard him. Kakashi just nudged him and asked him to show him his room, so Sasuke left his teammates in the foyer and trudged up the stairs to his room.

Sakura and Naruto immediately went searching for Itachi's room. A few weeks ago, Sakura had told Naruto about the Massacre, and showed Naruto a picture of Itachi from the library.

Naruto recognized him as Fox, the ANBU who cared for him for years, and insisted that something was fishy about the story, and wanted to go straight to the Hokage with his suspicions, but Sakura stopped him. She claimed that they needed more proof that just "he wouldn't have done that!"

So they were taking this opportunity to search Itachi's room.

"Look, we have maybe fifteen minutes," Sakura said, opening a drawer, "we have to be quick about this."

"I know, I know! Now shh, be quiet. Kitty's keeping watch on the bottom of the stairs and I need to be able to hear her when she meows."

It was ten minutes before either of them found anything.

"Sakura-chan, I found a scroll!"

"Okay, and?"

"It's encrypted!"

"Jackpot! But keep looking, just in case."

They continued searching until Kitty meowed, and then Naruto stuffed the scroll into his kunai pouch and they bolted from Itachi's room.

Sasuke gave them a suspicious look, but they smiled innocently.

"I know you two are up to something," he told them.

Naruto grinned widely. "We'll tell you when we're ready to tell you."

"Hmph."

Kakashi clapped his hands together, "alright kiddies, meet me at the gates at eight o'clock sharp tomorrow morning!"

* * *

><p>Eight o'clock the next morning, the three genin arrived at the gates to the village with their backpacks strapped on tight. Sasuke's bandoleer of scrolls was fuller than usual- he was carrying all of his puppets, not just his favorites. Kitty was napping on top of all of Naruto's stuff, inside his backpack, and Sakura had shaved the sides of her hair the night before.<p>

Kakashi managed to only be forty minutes late, and they were soon moving through the trees at a high speed.

"So while we're moving, I'll go over the details of this mission," he said, "first, we have to get to a small town called Hiri. They've been having a bandit problem for a few months, and have paid us to kill- not capture- as many bandits as we can find. Our search parameters are three miles around the town. The people of Hiri were even kind enough to give us an estimate of how many bandits they thought were in the area."

"So, how many are we looking at, Kakashi-sensei?" Sakura asked.

"Twenty to thirty. And, Hiri thinks that they've split up into two groups, so we won't be able to just kill them all in one fell swoop."

Kakashi felt rather sick, explaining to these children that they were expected to kill people. He remembered his first kill, at age six, and it was a horrible feeling. He'd felt like any semblance of childhood had been ripped from his hands. Then again, looking at his genin, only one of them could say they'd had any sort of 'normal' childhood, and she'd been halfway raised by Anko, after he mother died and her father fell ill. Sasuke witnessed his clan's murder by his own brother. Naruto's first friend had been a cat, and his second friend had been a teenage vet.

Kitty picked up on Kakashi's dour mood, and patted Naruto's head with her paw.

"Hm?" Naruto looked at her. She meowed and glanced over to Kakashi. "Oh, I see. Kakashi-sensei!"

"Yes, Naruto?"

"You don't have to worry about me freaking out about my first kill," Naruto told him a little sadly, "I've already had mine."

Kakashi faltered but caught himself before he fell. "Why wasn't I informed of this?"

Naruto shrugged. "I think Hokage-jii-san said he sealed up the incident so the council couldn't attack me over it, or something. It was a while ago, during the Kyuubi Defeat festival?"

Sasuke let out an incredulous bark of laughter, "are you serious?"

"Yeah," Naruto replied, "a guy got too drunk, and came to my apartment. Was sayin' shit about 'killing the demon once and for all', and came at me with a broken bottle. I tried to get the attention of one of the ANBU that patrols during the festival, but there wasn't one. And I wasn't so good with traps back then, and I didn't know how to disable someone without killin' them."

"How'd you kill him?" Sakura asked, morbidly curious.

"Kunai to the throat. ANBU got there after that."

Naruto was subdued after that, and his teammates stopped asking him questions.

* * *

><p>At eighteen hundred hours, they arrived in Hiri.<p>

The town mayor escorted them to his house, fed them, and offered them a room to stay the night.

"Maybe in a few hours, sir," Kakashi said, "but I want to get this mission started first."

Kakashi made sure to spend an hour and a half going over tactics and hand signs, so that their stomachs would settle a little. One of them would probably still vomit after it was all done, of course, but dry heaving was even worse. Still, they'd need the calories for all the running around they would be doing that night.

Finally, it was time to head out. They spread out to cover a wide area, but stayed within earshot of each other. Whoever found a bandit would sound out with a bird call, and the other three would meet up with them. Kakashi was already planning on taking out any loners before calling his team, just to ease them into killing with a dead body first.

A sharp bird call to his left sounded out. Naruto had found a bandit.

Kakashi arrived there first, surprised but ultimately entertained that Naruto had had the same thought he did. Naruto still looked a little pale, staring at the corpse, though. As Kakashi knew, second kills were just as bad as- if not worse than- the first kill.

He offered Naruto a peppermint candy, which he immediately accepted.

"Report," Kakashi ordered when Sasuke and Sakura arrived.

"Kitty heard him crashing about on the forest floor, and I had the opportunity to pounce on him," Naruto reported dully, "so I did."

Kakashi ruffled his hair. "Good job, Naruto. Which way was he headed?"

Naruto pointed, and Kakashi used a hand gesture to order them to spread out again and head in that direction. A few minutes later, they discovered a large camp, set up in a clearing in the woods. They would later discover that it was the only bandit camp in the area their mission specified that they clear out.

Kakashi ordered Naruto and Sasuke through signing to move out to the far side of the camp, and stayed close to Sakura. It wasn't that he thought she was incapable, he just knew Naruto and Sasuke worked better as a duo. (He made a mental note to add team training to the list of things he needed to do with them.)

* * *

><p>Sasuke knew he wouldn't be able to do much in close range, and hung back. Kitty sat at his feet, staring intently after her human.<p>

Naruto had slipped silently ahead, hovering in a tree branch, just above a sentry's head. Clearly these bandits weren't terribly intelligent, as their sentries worked alone and weren't near the main parts of the camp. They made for easy pickings when it came to assassinating them.

This time, instead of dropping down on him, Naruto simply threw a kunai into the bandit's throat.

Sasuke tensed up at the sound of the man choking on his own blood, and almost fell into old memories he had thought he'd buried years ago. Kitty rubbed her face against his leg, and he was brought back into the present. He scratched her ear in thanks.

Naruto waved at them, and clicked his tongue for Kitty, who leapt off of the branch she and Sasuke shared.

She slunk into a nearby tent, and came back out and onto Naruto's shoulder. Naruto, in return, looked to Sasuke and held up four fingers, and signed out 'sleeping'.

Which was Sasuke's cue to send in a puppet.

Instead of Weasel (a purely attack puppet, and not made to be terribly quiet), he brought out Blade from his scroll. Blade was a simplistic puppet, shaped like a human for the most part, but with short, fat blades for hands and filled with silent senbon launchers. His joints were oiled into silence, as well. He was designed for this kind of mission.

Unfortunately, there was a downside to puppeteering that most people didn't know about: it required a line of sight or a highly expensive camera eyeball paired with an equally expensive monitor. Sasuke had the Uchiha fortune behind him, but most of that went to the upkeep of the Uchiha complex, and he couldn't afford to buy such things just yet. (He thought he might invest in one with this mission's rewards, however.)

So he hopped down as quietly as he could ('how was Naruto able to be silent?' He wondered.) and slipped inside the tent.

Blade hovered above one of the bandits, and Sasuke twitched his pinkie finger.

His puppet's left sword-hand descended and

Stopped just above the man's throat.

"Make it back off or I cut _your_ throat," a man behind him whispered.

Sasuke clicked his tongue. His mouth was dry and his eyes itched, though he didn't feel any tears on his face.

He forced himself to say, "Bad move."

The man paused. "What's that supposed to-"

Hot, thick liquid splashed across the back of Sasuke's neck.

"Sorry, bastard," Naruto whispered, "I bet Sakura will help you get the blood out of your clothes when we get back, though."

"Don't worry about it," Sasuke whispered in return, and slashed two of the bandit's throats in quick succession while Naruto took care of the last.

* * *

><p>Meanwhile, Kakashi was watching Sakura's back while she slipped into a tent on the other side of the camp from the boys. So far, she hadn't freaked out. She would, he knew, but it was looking like she was the sort to freak out hours after the deed was done. It both complicated things and made things simpler. On one hand, they could get the job done easily without alerting any of the bandits. On the other hand, Sakura would probably be embarrassed when Sasuke and Naruto saw her panicking.<p>

"Shit."

Kakashi darted into the tent he'd watched Sakura enter, hoping to god she was alright.

She stood, shaking, with blood on her dress and in her hair. Four bodies lay in various states of dead-ness on the cots around her.

"Hey, Sakura," Kakashi said, cursing internally, "are you alright?"

She sucked in a breath through her teeth, and closed her eyes. "Just- just gimmie a second. Holy fuck…"

Kakashi's heart went out to the girl, it really did. But she chose this job, and she had to get over this, and fast. There was still another fifteen to twenty bandits in the camp that needed to be exterminated, and he couldn't let the boys do all the work.

Sakura stopped shaking. "Alright, I think I'm good for now."

"Good," Kakashi said, relieved, "okay, I'll take the next tent, you keep a look out."

They slipped out of the tent, and moved on. After he'd taken the five in that tent out, he had an idea.

"Sakura, how good are you at memorizing seals quickly?"

"Pretty good. Why, Kakashi-sensei?"

He summoned his dogs, purposefully going through the seals at half the speed he was used to.

A pug and a red and white greyhound appeared at his feet with a puff of smoke.

"Yo," Pakkun greeted.

"Yo," Kakashi replied, "sorry to summon you away from the house without a tracking job for you, but do you know of a pack willing to take a fighter on as a summoner? I know it's sudden, but Sakura here could really use some help."

The greyhound scratched his ear with his foot. "Yeah, actually. My littermate is part of a small pack of hard hitting bitches. Last I saw her, she was saying that her pack leader was pretty open to humans."

"Perfect, can you bring her here?"

The greyhound disappeared in a puff of smoke.

Kakashi turned to Pakkun. "Can you explain summoning to her while I take care of some more bandits?"

"Sure. No problem, Kakashi."

Sakura waited until Kakashi was gone to let out a quiet laugh.

"What are you laughing about, pup?" Pakkun asked.

"Kakashi-sensei," she replied, and then set her voice deeper in an imitation of him, "'oh here Sakura let me teach you a new technique in the middle of an assassination mission!'"

Pakkun snorted. "Is that what happened? Sounds like him, alright. Well, I'm supposed to explain to you how dog summoning works, so sit down and listen. If you're good, I'll even let you touch my paw."

Sakura blinked at that, but sat down to listen.

"Basically, you get a set amount of dogs you can summon. Kakashi can only summon eight- my pack. Also, we're not like other summons in that we like staying in the human world. Before Kakashi summoned Uhei and I, we were at his apartment. And that's basically it."

Uhei reappeared in another puff of smoke, alongside a white greyhound wearing a silk, red vest embroidered with flower petals.

"Is this the one your summoner wants us to give our contract to?" the white greyhound asked.

Uhei nodded.

The white greyhound looked over Sakura for a few seconds, and then a small scroll appeared in (yet another) puff of smoke. She picked it up with her teeth, and dropped it into Sakura's lap.

"Cut your finger, sign in blood," the white greyhound explained, "then all you have to do is cut your finger again, go through the hand signs- do you know them? Yes? Good. And then we should appear. Since you appear to be in the middle of a mission, I'll go into detail of how you summon just one of us later. Oh, and my name's Sayuri."

By the time Sayuri was finished explaining, Sakura was also finished signing her name.

She ran through the signs Kakashi had showed her minutes ago, and slapped her hand on the ground. Four other dogs appeared beside Sayuri: a shaggy-haired white and red mutt and a stocky grey-blue dog with a whipcord tail to her left and a lanky, white, long-haired dog and a mostly red shepherding dog to her right.

"Alright, I'll introduce everyone," Sayuri said, "from left to right: Ran, Ayame, Rina, and Tsubaki. Your orders?"

"Um," Sakura faltered. She wasn't used to command. "Well, the mission is to kill all of the bandits here, so I guess kill everyone you see? Except for anyone with this symbol. And be quiet, so that we don't end up in a huge fight."

She pointed to her headband.

"Got it. Move out!"

The five dogs scattered, leaving Pakkun and Uhei standing with Sakura when Kakashi returned moments later.

"You have a pack? Good. Now, go join them," he ordered.

Sakura saluted and darted off after Sayuri.

* * *

><p>It took just half an hour to clean out the bandit camp, and by the end of it, all three genin had blood on their clothes and their skin, and Sakura's dogs' muzzles were stained red as well. They were also exhausted, even Naruto, with his seemingly endless amounts of energy.<p>

"Good job, my cute little genin," Kakashi praised, patting their heads.

"Now that I know you summon dogs," Sakura said, "that's a lot less cute of a gesture."

"Oh hush. Now it's time for the fun part!" Kakashi announced, "Going through all of the tents and looking for valuables! Anything you find is fair game, as long as you can carry it. Oh, and you should dispose of the bodies as you go along. Remember that D-rank fire technique I showed all of you?"

They nodded.

"Good, use that on the bodies. Now, go on, shoo!"

Sasuke headed to the north end of the camp, vaguely remembering seeing a stockpile of wood and metal launchers. Naruto set off to the west, just wanting all of his kunai back. Sakura took the east side with her dogs, in search of a sword she'd seen.

In another half hour, they returned to where Kakashi had waited for them, reading his book.

Sasuke didn't appear to be holding anything, but when Kakashi looked at him, he held up a scroll. He'd sealed away all of his loot.

Naruto had found a black and red coat with the kanji for "fox" written on the back.

"I think it fits me, you know?" he told Kakashi, "I'd probably scare the shit out of people if I wore it, though…"

Kakashi smiled at him. "Wear it anyway. It's better than that god awful orange jump suit."

Naruto flicked him off, but yanked off his orange coat and slipped on the red and black coat.

Sakura had found not one, but _three_ swords. All three were fairly slim, with rectangular hand guards. The only difference between them were the color of the handles: one was a brassy color, the second silver, and the last a matte black.

"You want to learn sword fighting?" Kakashi asked her.

"Yes," she replied, "I do."

He nodded. "I'll set you up with the basics, and if you show aptitude, I'll find someone better than me to teach you."

She smiled in thanks.

"Now, one last thing. I want to talk to you three about training as a three man team from now on, and as a two man teams with both of your teammates. That means from now on, Sasuke and Naruto aren't allowed to pair up for training two days in a row, and you, Sakura, have to work with both of your teammates and not just me from now on."

In unison, they replied, "yes sensei."

He patted their heads again. "Alright, let's get back home, shall we? Don't bother dismissing your dogs, Sakura, they can walk with us, since Uhei and Pakkun are as well."

* * *

><p><em>argh, fucking line breaks again. also: to the guest who asked about sasuke and gaara being sand bros; sorry but no. gaara came to the leaf village while sasuke went to the sand village.<em>


	5. Chapter 4

Team Seven stayed the night in the mayor of Hiri's home that night, and left the next morning after showing the town's sheriff the decimated bandit camp.

They walked back to the Leaf Village at a much slower pace than they left it. Kakashi did this intentionally, so that he could watch over them for the twelve hours the walk would take. Pakkun slept cradled in his arms, while Uhei tried to convince his littermate, Sayuri, to play with him.

Sayuri mostly ignored him, instead talking with Sakura. When she finally did give in to his urging, Ayame the blue-grey pit bull took her place and chatted softly with Sakura and the rest of her pack. Kakashi was very glad that his flash of inspiration in the middle of the mission had pulled through so fantastically.

Naruto had taken it as his job to make Sasuke cheer up, and was bombarding him with jokes and forcing him to hold Kitty.

"Okay, okay, what do you call a pile of cats that's as tall as the clouds?" Naruto asked.

Sasuke groaned. "Please don't make a pun."

"A meow-tain!"

"I'm going to kill you."

Yes, Kakashi was glad to let his students have a bit of a winding down from such a harsh first C-rank.

* * *

><p>When they reached the Leaf gates, he told them to meet him at the bridge per usual the next day, and wandered vaguely in the direction of the Hokage Tower to give his report.<p>

Sasuke grabbed his teammates' arms before they could wander off as well.

"Hey, I want to talk to you guys about something," he explained when they turned to him with confused expressions.

"What about, Sasuke?" Sakura asked.

He shifted uncomfortably. "Well, I think we should work on team building."

"Well, Kakashi-sensei already said we were going to," Naruto pointed out.

Sasuke shook his head. "He said we'd be learning to work as a three man team and two man teams other than the ones we already had been. I meant we should work on team building."

"Oh," Sakura said, a grin spreading across her face, "I see. But what made you, the brooding loner kid, want to work on team building of all things?"

"I still don't get it," Naruto interrupted.

"Sasuke wants us to be friends as well as teammates."

Naruto quieted. "I thought we _were_ friends."

Sakura and Sasuke traded panicked looks.

"I meant-!" Sasuke floundered for a minute. "I meant, better friends than we were."

Sasuke realized, in a panicked flash, that he was opening the way to follow his brother's last words to him. He'd tried to avoid making friends for that very reason, and here this blonde idiot was making that difficult for him. He didn't _want_ to kill his best friend like Itachi had, but Itachi had said that the only way to beat him.

And with that thought, Sasuke realized the perfect way to get his teammate to trust him.

"Naruto," he began, "do you remember when I said I was going to kill a certain man, back when we first became a team?"

"Yeah, kinda? It was a while ago, you know?"

"I know. What I'm trying to tell you is that the man I need to kill? He's my older brother."

Sakura clicked her tongue. "Not to sound callous, Sasuke, but everyone knows that."

Sasuke grit his teeth. "I wasn't finished."

"Sorry, sorry."

"He's my brother," Sasuke continued, "and I'm not sure I'd ever be able to beat him on my own. But we beat Kakashi during the bell test, and we were fresh genin when we did that. I bet we could kill an S-Ranked missing nin by the time we're jonin, which won't take very long if we work hard and work together."

Sakura straightened her posture. "You're serious."

He nodded.

"I'm in," Naruto said easily. "I already said you guys are gonna be by seconds in command, so why shouldn't I help my helpers?"

Sasuke snorted.

Sakura rolled her eyes. "Yeah, alright, I'm in. but you guys are gonna have to help me do a favor for someone. Anko-nee-chan told me that if I ever ran into Orochimaru to run, but I told her if I was strong enough, I'd try to kill him for her."

"If we can kill Itachi, we can kill this Orochimaru person," Sasuke said.

Naruto remembered the scroll with the cypher that was sitting on his worktable at home, and kicked Sakura's ankle when Sasuke looked away.

She glared at him.

He mimed reading a scroll and pointed to Sasuke.

She grimaced and nodded, pointing from her chest to his.

"Alright!" Naruto chirped, "Let's go get ramen and then chill at my apartment for a while, yeah? Team building! You brought it up, Sasuke!"

He had, so he allowed Naruto to grab his wrist and half drag him to Ichiraku Ramen, while Sakura and her pack trailed behind.

* * *

><p>After their late lunch at Ichiraku, Team Seven had walked the short distance to Naruto's apartment, and spread out in his living room.<p>

Sasuke was back to sketching the scarred up cat he'd seen the last time, and Naruto was busy brushing various cats as they wandered onto and off of his lap. Most of them were the long haired cats who were prone to getting knots, and barely stayed long enough for him to yank them out with a comb.

"Sorry, sorry, I know it sucks, but you don't want to get matted, you know?" he'd tell them, and they'd huff and hold still for a moment longer.

Sakura just lounged around, talking with her dogs, waiting for the perfect moment to ask Naruto for the scroll.

When Sasuke slumped over his sketchbook and began mumbling to himself, Sakura took that as her opportunity.

"Hey, Naruto, didn't you say you found an encrypted scroll at one of the training grounds?" she asked casually.

"Hm?" Naruto looked up from the Persian he was combing out. "Oh, yeah! Gimmie a sec to get this last knot out of, um," he checked the cat's collar, "out of Snookums' fur. Jeez, who names a cat Snookums?"

"Says the guy who named his cat 'Kitty'," Sasuke replied dryly.

Sakura snorted loudly, and nodded in eager agreement. "He's got you there!"

Naruto grumbled, and dumped Snookums onto Sasuke's lap in retaliation before stomping off towards his bedroom. When he returned, he chucked the scroll at Sakura, which she easily caught. One of the first things Anko had taught her was how to catch kunai- scrolls were nothing in comparison.

She opened the scroll and whistled.

Sasuke looked up at her, and she cursed internally.

"This is a hell of a cypher, Naruto," she admitted, "where'd you find it again?"

"Uh," Naruto froze, wracking his brain for information about Itachi that would make sense if the scroll was what he hoped it was.

Sakura raised her eyebrow and tried not to panic.

Sasuke rolled his eyes at his teammates terrible attempts at subterfuge.

"Training ground eighteen, I think," Naruto said eventually, "it was tucked into a hole in a tree and inside of a zip lock bag."

The air temperature fell about ten degrees when Sasuke turned to stare at Naruto. Eighteen was his brother's favorite training ground, and it was mostly used by jonin and ANBU. Genin only knew it existed, usually, because there were a total of fifty training grounds around the Leaf Village.

Naruto picked up on Sasuke's curiosity and admitted the truth, "I go there to hide from people, sometimes."

Sasuke relaxed. Of course. That made sense. People didn't like Naruto, of course he'd hide in a tucked away training ground. It was just coincidence that it was the one closest to the Uchiha compound and Itachi's favorite. Coincidence.

"Anyway," Sakura said, now that the tension had broken, "this is going to take me a while to break, and dad is probably going to be super curious about my dogs, so I should go."

Naruto waved blindly. "Bye, Sakura-chan!"

She let herself out, leaving Sasuke and Naruto alone.

* * *

><p>The next morning, Sakura was a little surprised to see Sasuke and Naruto arrive together, and from the direction of Naruto's apartment. She glanced over Sasuke, and noticed his shorts still had a faded red-brown stain on the side of the leg from the mission.<p>

"Did you sleep over at Naruto's apartment?" she demanded.

Sasuke looked away. "I got distracted planning a puppet."

Naruto grinned. "Lucky for him, my couch turns into a bed, so he didn't have to sleep on the floor!"

Kakashi appeared in a puff of smoke, disrupting their conversation.

They froze immediately and stared at him in horror.

"You're… not late?" Naruto said after a few minute's silence.

Kakashi grimaced. "I know. And I have bad news for you."

The three of them instinctively shuffled together a little. Kakashi being on time was bad enough. Him looking grim and telling them he had 'bad news' for them? They collectively wondered if the apocalypse was upon them.

"Team Ten, Asuma, Ino, Shikamaru, and Choji, went out on a C-rank three days ago. The Hokage got a request this morning for a back-up team. Unfortunately, he can't send more than two jonin into a country without a ninja village without upsetting the other ninja villages, and all of the qualified chunin are occupied, and it's against his own policy to send any ninja out alone."

"So he has to send in a jonin, but he can't just send one jonin, because they'd be travelling alone?" Sakura asked.

Kakashi nodded. "Yes, exactly."

"So then," Naruto asked slowly, "then, he has to send a jonin that has a genin team?"

Kakashi patted Naruto's head. "Yes, that's exactly it. And, somehow, we're the only team in the village with a C-rank under our belt that isn't occupied."

"We're the back up," Sasuke said.

"Yes. Go pack up again, and after this mission I'm taking you three on a week long training trip and we're going to go to a nearby town and have a vacation."

* * *

><p>Sakura had left her all of her dogs with her dad, since that's what they wanted. She could still summon them to her, however, and they would take care of her dad while she was gone. Tsubaki, the red shepherding dog, had also volunteered to feed Naruto's cats while they were gone.<p>

"I'm stealing this one from you!" Naruto declared upon hearing Tsubaki's offer.

Kitty smacked his ear with her paw.

"Wh- no, I'm not replacing you, Kitty! What the hell!?"

Kakashi and Sasuke were waiting for them at the gates, and they set off immediately. They made a quick stop at where Asuma had subdued the demon brothers, and Kakashi finished them off, for safety's sake, and then continued on until they reached where Asuma had fought Zabuza and nearly lost.

"Alright, impromptu test. Tell me what happened here."

Kitty leapt from Naruto's shoulder and started sniffing around while Sasuke wandered around, looking at the various marks on the trees.

Sakura stared after them, feeling rather useless for once.

Kitty returned to Naruto's feet, and meowed. He picked her up and explained, "She says that there's a lot of blood in the water, and that most of it smells like… wind? I dunno, I'm just tellin' you what she's tellin' me, okay, and she said that it wasn't enough to mean that windy-blood is dead, but that he's prolly hurt bad enough that he won't be able to fight for a couple of weeks."

Sasuke also finished his circuit around the small lake. "Most of these are from wind techniques, but some are from a large, sharp object. I'd say an axe, but the gouges aren't curved- they're straight. So it's more likely that it's a big fucking sword."

Sakura snorted. "You had to say 'big fucking sword'? 'Big sword' wasn't good enough?"

He shook his head.

"Good job, boys. Sakura, do you have anything to add?"

"Well," she ran her hand through her mohawk. "I'm guessing Asuma-san is the one with the wind techniques, since I know from the bingo book that Zabuza uses a sword. Oddly enough, the sword isn't pictured in the bingo book, so I don't actually know how big it is. I'm also gonna guess that since there's no blood from Team Ten, the genin at least, that they were either ambushed with enough warning to dodge, or Zabuza was waiting for them. I'm gonna go with the first one though, since Asuma-san lost so much blood."

Kakashi hummed appreciatively. "What else?"

She stared out at the lake. "Naruto, did Kitty smell a corpse in the water, or nearby?"

"…no?"

"Then…" she paused, and her eyes widened. "Zabuza has an accomplice!"

Kakashi patted her head. "Very good, Sakura. Let's continue on."

They continued easily through the trees until they reached the coast.

Kakashi sighed. "Please tell me you three know water walking by now."

Sasuke gave him a scathing look. "I know every chakra control technique in both the Leaf Village and the Sand Village. Of course I know water walking."

Sakura shrugged. "I've got naturally perfect control. I mastered it minutes after you showed it to us."

"yeah no," Naruto told him, "I've been trying since I saw you do it, but it took me a week to figure out tree climbing, and we've been busy with missions."

Kakashi pinched the bridge of his nose. "Alright, Sasuke, Sakura, you're running. Sasuke, take Kitty. Naruto, I'm going to have to carry you."

* * *

><p>After that, it took just a few minutes to find where Team Ten was staying- Kakashi simply summoned Pakkun and asked him to track their scents.<p>

Sasuke was breathing heavily when they arrived. Sakura was pale from how much chakra she had used, and was leaning on Naruto so she didn't fall over, although she insisted that she could walk on her own. It was only because of his lack of chakra control, Naruto was the least tired of the four of them.

Kakashi politely knocked on the door to the small house.

A thin woman answered, and immediately sighed in relief when she saw their headbands. "Thank god you're here. Asuma-san's been unconscious for most of the time since he and his team arrived. One of his boys said Asuma-san had sent for back up, but…"

"You were worried." Kakashi nodded. "I understand. Still, most of my team is exhausted from the pace we set to get here so quickly. May we come in so we can rest?"

"Of course, of course! My name's Tsunami; just shout for me if you need anything."

"Thank you very much, Tsunami-san," Kakashi replied, entering the house. "Naruto, you're on watch. Go ahead and use your Shadow Clones- remember what we talked about?"

"They send me their memories, I know!"

He created eight of them, and split them into a pair of four man teams, and sent them out while he stayed in the house.

"…Naruto!?"

Team Seven turned as one at the sound of the familiar voice.

Naruto lit up. "Shikamaru! How've you been?"

"Tired," he answered. He looked it, too. He had dark, heavy bags under his eyes, and he was moving even more lethargically than usual.

"Good news!" Naruto told him in response, "We're your back up! You can take a break while we protect you all!"

Shikamaru laughed dryly. "I'm not so sure I'm actually all that relieved, dead-last."

Naruto scowled, but Sasuke threw his hand out in front of his chest.

"My teammate is more than his academy scores," Sasuke told him darkly.

Shikamaru held his hands in a gesture of surrender. "Sorry, it's just been a long couple days. I really am glad to see you guys. Especially Sakura- now Ino will quit nagging me and focus on her."

Sakura groaned. "That's the last thing I want after walking a mile over water."

Sasuke opened his mouth to say something, hesitated, and then said, "I can fend her off if you want."

"Oh, you're an angel, Sasuke," Sakura told him, "but I wouldn't do that to you."

Sakura gave Sasuke a calculating look. He'd been acting… _odd_ since they'd gotten back to the Leaf Village from their first C-rank. He'd been more open, a little chattier, and now she'd noticed he was being more protective of them.

Shikamaru stared at Sasuke incredulously. "You are a brave man if you're willing to put yourself on the spot for your teammate. Or is she your girlfriend?"

Both of them scrunched her face up in disgust and Naruto cackled.

"Ew, no, I don't have time for boys right now," Sakura spat, "Once I'm the strongest ninja in the village, then maybe. But not right now!"

Sasuke nodded, frowning. "Even if I didn't need to get stronger to kill someone, I wouldn't want to rebuild my clan and have them have pink hair. No offense, Sakura, but it's not exactly the most intimidating hair color."

Shikamaru held up an apologetic hand. "Sorry, I won't bring it up again."

* * *

><p>Sakura was exhausted, but not tired. She needed rest, not sleep. Or so she told herself. Really, she just desperately wanted to continue to work on the cypher she and Naruto had found in Itachi's room. She was certain she was on the verge of figuring out part of it, and it was making her itch.<p>

Sasuke had taken a nap before wandering out to the nearby town with Kakashi and the original Naruto, leaving Sakura alone in the house with Team Ten and their clients.

She was very much hoping that Ino would leave her alone to study the cypher- mentally titled 'The Itachi Cypher'- but unfortunately, Ino took her studying as an invitation to distract her.

"So…" Ino drawled, chin propped on her hands.

Sakura pointedly ignored her and wrote down a note in her memo pad dedicated to the Itachi Cypher.

Ino scoffed. "On a team with the number one bachelor our age, and you're not even bothering to try to take advantage of the opportunity."

Sakura continued to ignore her, hoping she'd get the point.

"You know, I still think your hair's stupid. It'd look super pretty if you grew it out, though."

Sakura's jaw clenched. "Since when have I cared about your or anyone's opinions, Ino? Now shoo, I'm working on a project that I'd like to get done as soon as possible."

"Can I help?"

Ino sounded desperately genuine, and Sakura looked up from the Itachi Cypher to squint at her suspiciously.

"Why?"

Ino dragged a hand down her face. "Because I'm ungodly bored and Tsunami-san only talks about cooking! She's almost as bad as Choji!"

Sakura snorted. "No, you can't help. This is a personal project between me and Naruto."

"…Is Naruto your boyfriend?"

Sakura threw her hands up in the air. "If you're that starved for gossip, why don't you grab one of Naruto's clones and have him walk around the town with you!?"

"Because it's depressing!"

"Welcome to fucking life, Ino!"

Asuma coughed. "Girls, please. Ino, leave Sakura alone. Sakura, shouldn't you be sleeping?"

"Can't," Sakura grumbled, "puzzle's making my brain itch."

"Ah, you're like Shikamaru, aren't you," Asuma guessed.

Sakura shrugged. "I'm no Nara, but I rank somewhere on the genius scale."

Shikamaru heard this and slowly picked himself up from his slump. He stared at her for a long moment, calculating, before casually announcing, "I brought a Go board."

Pausing, Sakura asked, "Is this your way of demanding I play a game with you?"

"It's not a demand. It's a request. You can turn me down."

"But you'll continue to ask for a game if I say no."

"It's a possibility."

Sakura tapped her chin. "Tell you what, you help me with this cypher- once you swear you won't tell anyone what's on it- and I'll play a game with you."

Shikamaru held his hand over his heart. "I swear I will not tell a soul about what is on that scroll except for you."

"Alright, then come here and tell me what you think."

* * *

><p>Asuma was up and walking the day after Team Seven had arrived, but he had to use crutches, and he couldn't do any chakra intensive techniques. He could, however whenever they weren't guarding Tazuna, show his team how to walk on trees. Since Team Seven already knew how to do that, Kakashi forced Naruto to practice water walking while Sasuke and Sakura drilled in teamwork.<p>

"This fucking sucks!" Naruto complained when he dragged himself onto the beach for the hundredth time.

Sasuke, from his position on the shore where he was controlling Blade and Weasel in a fight with Sakura against Kakashi, said, "Kitty figured it out pretty quickly."

"Kitty has less chakra than Sakura-chan does."

Sasuke conceded with a nod of his head. "True, but it's still a very simple technique."

Naruto groaned. "Okay, you explain it if it's so simple."

"You remember how much chakra you need to stick to a tree? It's about three times that, and you have to fluctuate your chakra instead of just pooling it on your feet."

"What's fluctuate mean?"

"Like waves- not always constant."

Naruto smacked his forehead. "Of course! That makes so much more sense!"

And when he stepped onto the water, he was able to stand without issues. Even when one of Kakashi's kunai went wild and he had to leap away, he jumped and landed without falling in.

"Great job, Naruto!" Kakashi called, "now come help your teammates!"

Naruto grinned, and leapt into the fray with a battle cry.

* * *

><p>"Asuma-san."<p>

The man looked over at Sasuke in question.

"You said that Zabuza had been stabbed through the throat with a pair of senbon, correct? Could you show me exactly where they pierced the skin?"

"I could, but why?"

Sasuke pursed his lips. "My teacher in the art of puppetry forced me to learn anatomy. If I know where the needles pierced, I can tell you how much longer we have until he's in fighting shape again."

Asuma raised an eyebrow and looked to Kakashi.

Kakashi shrugged. "I'm planning on sending him to some medic-nin classes later. He's shown a lot of aptitude towards the practice."

Asuma drew lines representing the senbon on an image of a neck that Sasuke had sketched.

Sasuke looked at it for a minute, squinting, and then said, "We have approximately five days to prepare."

Grimly, Asuma told them, "there's no way I'm going to be ready by then. If Kakashi had been in my place, he might have been, but I've never had half the recovery rate your teacher does. It'll be up to him to fight Zabuza."

Sakura scoffed. "No, Kakashi-sensei isn't allowed to fight alone. From what you've told us about his accomplice, I think Naruto and I should fight him, and Sasuke should team up with Kakashi-sensei."

Kakashi tilted his head in thought. "Sasuke, can you see people through a fog?"

"A natural one, yes. Not a chakra induced fog."

Sakura frowned. "Well, what if you placed a chakra-string on him?"

Sasuke stared at her incredulously. "You need a ridiculous amount of chakra string to control a human being. More than I could make."

"No, no!" Sakura shook her head. "I mean, can you track him if you put a chakra string on him?"

He looked at her thoughtfully. "It's possible. I want to test it, first, though, for distance at the least."

Naruto stood. "It's my turn to go with Tsunami to the town for food anyway. Put one on me and see how long it takes to break."

Shrugging, Sasuke reached out and placed a string on Naruto's shoulder, and ignored the rest of the conversation while he tracked Naruto while he wandered the house, found Tsunami, and walked down the path to the village.

Sasuke's limit turned out to be fifty yards- about the same as the maximum distance he could send his puppets.

Kakashi and Asuma gathered both of their teams at the table that night, and hashed out a plan of attack.

* * *

><p>When Tazuna was ready to leave on the seventh morning, both teams gathered their gear and came along. At Shikamaru's advisement, Naruto had left two teams of clones at the house in case Gatou decided to attack Tazuna's family.<p>

A few minutes; walk away from the bridge, Naruto was glad of this when one of his clones popped and sent him the memory of beating the hell out of a pair of thugs.

When they arrived at the bridge, they discovered that all of the workers had been knocked unconscious.

"Naruto, clones." Kakashi ordered.

He glanced over the area, counting the people, and made two clones for each man, and they dragged the men out of the way of what would become the battlefield.

A chuckle echoed through the heavy fog on the far side of the bridge. "Clever, clever. Who's this that's joined you, Leaf ninja? Too weak to take me on your own?"

"Little bit, yeah!" Asuma called in return, "but he won't be nearly as easy to beat as I was!"

"Oh, really? Haku."

Something shot out at them too fast for most of them to see. Kakashi darted out to meet it, and they clashed in a screech of metal.

"You're the accomplice," Kakashi murmured.

Naruto shouted indignantly. "It's a kid! There's no way he's any older than us! How's he so fast! Kakashi-sensei, you've been holding out on us!"

Sakura punched Naruto in the arm. "Idiot. Some people just get better, earlier. Now shut up and pay attention to the fight."

Naruto rubbed his arm and fell silent.

Zabuza laughed. "Six genin and two jonin. That's all you brought to fight me with?"

Haku leapt back, and stood at the edge of the fog.

Kakashi and Asuma shared a glance, and then Kakashi was signing commands at his team and Asuma was ordering his team to surround Tazuna.

Team Seven leapt onto action. Sasuke summoned Blade and Bella, a womanly shaped puppet filled to the brim with weapons poisoned with belladonna, from their scrolls, Kitty leapt from Naruto's shoulder to Sasuke's, and Naruto and Sakura joined Blade and Bella, standing about five yards from Haku.

"Two genin and another's dolls? This'll be easy for my apprentice."

"Actually," Kakashi said as Naruto, Sakura, and the puppets moved forward, "it's only two of my genin your apprentice needs to worry about."

Sakura and Naruto engaged Haku, and the puppets dashed past the two genin and into the fog, slashing at Zabuza with ease. The fog cleared a little, and Sasuke grinned when he saw Zabuza examining a gash on his arm from Blade. It would have been nicer if Bella had gotten him, but the opportunity was still there.

"Ah, now that's a surprise. You gonna tell me how you did this?" Zabuza asked casually.

Sasuke said nothing.

"Alright then."

Before anyone could move, Zabuza was in front of Sasuke and slashing him in half.

Ino screamed.

Zabuza felt a prick at the back of his neck, and his skin felt like it was heating up. He turned, and Bella was standing there with a droplet of blood on the tip of her sharp fingernail. He touched the back of his neck, and it came away bloody as well.

His heart rate picked up involuntarily. "What…?"

Sasuke's voice echoed around the area, imitating Zabuza from before, "Dilated pupils, sensitivity to light, blurred vision, tachycardia, loss of balance, staggering, headache, rash, flushing, severely dry mouth and throat, slurred speech, confusion, hallucinations, delirium, and convulsions."

Bella tried to rake her clawed fingers across Zabuza's face, and he only narrowly avoided it.

"Found in moist, shady locations, Belladonna is a highly dangerous plant. And my puppet just gave you half a berry's worth. Two to five will kill an average human. I hope you're good at dodging."

* * *

><p>Sakura and Naruto, while fighting Haku, traded exasperated glances.<p>

"Of course he gets chatty in a fight," Naruto griped, "what a showoff."

Sakura laughed. "Did you hear Ino scream? She sounded like she'd been the one ripped in half!"

Naruto laughed in reply, thanking Sasuke mentally for telling him to leave Kitty at the house with his clones. For all that he was kind of an asshole most of the time, he didn't fuck around when it came to their actual safety.

Sakura was watching Haku's mask when something clicked in her brain. She yelped, and reached into her pocket for her pen to write it down quickly.

Naruto reacted immediately, thinking she was hurt, jumping in front of her and shielding her. "Are you okay!?"

"Yeah, I just figured out what that symbol meant is all!" she replied while scribbling on her arm.

Naruto sighed I relief and sent a wave of clones after Haku. "Jeez Sakura, can you not scare the shit out of me next time!?"

"Sorry, sorry," she said, putting away her pen, "I'll try not to do that next time."

Haku killed all of his clones and attacked them.

He hadn't said a word during the entire fight, and it was starting to unnerve Naruto. He was used to sparring with Sakura, who liked to banter, and Sasuke, who called him names, and Kakashi, who pointed out flaws in his fighting.

"Hey Sakura-chan, I have an idea!"

"Is it a stupid one?"

"Probably!"

"… alright, let's do it."

"Do that camp fire technique and hold the fire for me!"

She did as he asked, and then screamed with laughter when Naruto threw a gust of wind at it, using a technique used to _put out_ camp fires, spreading the fire in a large area in front of them. Sakura guessed he got the idea from when Kakashi was originally teaching them the techniques, and he nearly caught fire to training ground 12.

Haku was caught in a blaze of fire, and while he came out mostly fine, his clothes were singed and his hands looked like he'd gotten a nasty sunburn.

Naruto held his fist out for a fist bump. Sakura readily gave him one. Admittedly, it had been a stupid plan. But as the old saying goes: if it's stupid and it works, then it's not stupid. And his plan had worked even better than she would have expected, since he not only managed to make their enemy back off, but also made it difficult for him to attack again.

* * *

><p>Team Ten watched their old classmates in surprise.<p>

"Sakura works better with that blond idiot than she ever worked with anyone back in the Academy!" Ino complained.

Shikamaru wisely refrained from replying with 'you're blonde, idiot.' It was a very tempting thought, though.

"Who knew Naruto was such a bad ass?" Choji said admiringly.

This time, Shikamaru snorted. "That kid's always been more than he seemed."

Choji and Ino both turned to stare at him.

"Shika," Ino said slowly, "you've always said Naruto was an idiot."

"And he is," Shikamaru agreed easily, "that doesn't mean he doesn't have a fuck ton of tricks up both of his sleeves. He's an idiot, but he's a clever idiot."

Choji shook his head. "You're weird, Shikamaru."

* * *

><p>Sasuke was ready to back out of his fight with Zabuza when he finally slashed Bella in half, and Kakashi prepared to jump in. Since Zabuza had about three berries worth of belladonna in his system, Kakashi was figuring it wouldn't take much work. Still, he decided to be careful.<p>

Zabuza didn't have an A-rank listing in the bingo book for nothing, after all.

"Your fucking…" Zabuza wavered, looking past Kakashi's shoulder and stumbling a little, "your fucking brat is better than I expected. He might have even be able to kill me if he keeps fighting."

And that gave Kakashi pause.

"Are you saying that because you want to kill him for injuring you or because you really believe that?" he asked.

It was a rhetorical question, but Zabuza answered, "No, even I know when to admit when I'm beat. Could I convince you to let Haku and I leave if we promise to leave the bridge builder alone?"

Kakashi tilted his head in thought.

Before he could answer, they were met with applause.

"Looks like the Devil of the Bloody Mist was beaten by a child!" a smarmy voice called out through Zabuza's Mist technique, "Maybe they should rename you the Baby of the Mist!"

Zabuza cancelled his mist technique, revealing Gatou and a mob of mercenaries.

Kakashi let out an ear-piercing whistle, and all three of his genin were at his side in moment.

Haku, likewise, appeared beside Zabuza in a flash. "Zabuza-sama?"

"I think we've been cheated, Haku," Zabuza told him.

"Astute observation!" Gatou replied, "get 'em, boys!"

In the chaos of a hundred men rushing forward, Asuma managed to command his team to move Tazuna to a safe place and guard him there. Team Seven paired off again- this time, Sasuke with Sakura and Naruto with Kakashi.

Sasuke's puppets provided cover for Sakura, and she protected his puppets from any of the mercenaries with large, heavy weapons that would deal irreparable damage to them. Kakashi used Naruto's clones and overpowered D-ranked wind technique as covering fire while he slashed throats left and right.

Zabuza joined in, sweeping his giant sword through swaths of mercenaries, while Haku hung back and stood over Team Ten protectively.

It was a short battle, but a bloody one. In the end, only Gatou and two of his mercenaries remained.

Sakura, Sasuke, and Naruto all looked a little sick, but they stood proudly.

"It's going to take forever to get this blood out of my hair," Sakura complained, trying to lighten the mood.

Sasuke shrugged. "You could always shave the rest off."

Naruto cackled, and Sakura stared at Sasuke in surprise.

"You just made a _joke."_ She said.

Her shocked reply only made Naruto howl with laughter.

Unsurprisingly, this unnerved both Gatou and Team Ten.

"Kakashi," Asuma said, disproving, "please tell me you aren't training them like you trained your ANBU."

"No!" Kakashi denied immediately, "They're like this on their own! I swear!"

At this point, Gatou tried to bolt, though Zabuza stopped him with one last swing of his sword before he collapsed.

"Shit," Sasuke said, and yanked a scroll from his bandoleer. He unsealed a vial, and looked over at Kakashi in question.

"You can give Zabuza the antidote, yes," Kakashi told him, "he's no longer our enemy."

Sasuke nodded and rushed over to pour half the vial down Zabuza's throat.

* * *

><p>Two weeks later, the bridge was finally finished, Asuma was fully recovered from his initial fight with Zabuza, and Zabuza and Haku were long gone. As they left Wave Country via the newly completed bridge, Kakashi overheard the townspeople talking about naming the bridge after the man that had killed Gatou.<p>

And so the bridge was named the Great Zabuza Bridge.

* * *

><p><em>this took me way longer than i was expecting, tbh, but it also ran longer, so i figure it balances out? if you see any glaring discrepancies, don't be afraid to PM me or something, btw, cause i feel like i keep forgetting something<em>


	6. Chapter 5

Kakashi made good on his promise of a week-long vacation disguised as a training trip.

Not that they didn't train during it, but they did so at a much more relaxed pace than they were used to. Naruto particularly enjoyed training to use Kitty in fights as well as in espionage. Sakura enjoyed the opportunity to focus on the Itachi Cypher, but was delighted when Kakashi offered to teach her some taijutsu complementary to what Anko had already taught her.

Sasuke was less pleased with the whole trip, but ultimately agreed that he had needed such a break from his rigorous self-appointed training. He also managed to complete Tiger, the puppet he'd been planning since he'd seen the scarred up cat that lived on Naruto's windowsill.

Kakashi wistfully collected his students on the last day. It was such a pity that these vaca- training trips never lasted long unless they were actual training trips.

"Alright, I've got news for you all!" he said, arriving a good thirty minutes later than he had told them to meet him, "I've decided that I'm going to enter you three into the chunin exams! When we get back to the Village, we'll have about three weeks to prepare, so you're going to be busting your asses."

The groaned in unison.

* * *

><p>After a grueling three weeks, Team Seven was finally given the paperwork for the chunin exams, told to be at the Academy at eight in the morning, and shooed on home.<p>

It was Naruto's turn to host the sleepover that Sakura had insisted they have every week (she'd been gunning for it before Sasuke said he wanted to actually be friends, and after that she'd flat-out forced them into the new tradition). The four of them were fairly tired after that day's training, and sincerely wanted food and sleep.

So they went to Ichiraku, ate a few bowls, and shuffled to Naruto's apartment, where the couch-bed was still pulled out and halfway covered in cats. It took a few seconds to shove the cats out of the way enough to sleep, and then the three of them passed out in their clothes.

Naruto's alarm went off at six, like it did every morning. Sasuke shook Sakura awake while Naruto moved around his tiny kitchen, making up bowls of cereal for them all. Once Sakura was awake, he left the room so she could change in privacy.

During breakfast they filled out their paperwork and prepared camping bags, since Sakura had read that the second part of the exams was usually a survival test. Sasuke sealed up their bags and tucked the scroll into his bandoleer.

At seven thirty, they left Naruto's apartment and headed to the academy.

* * *

><p>"Genjutsu," Sasuke muttered to his teammates, "let's be quiet and go up the other stairwell."<p>

Kakashi stood at the top of the stairs.

"… Did we fuck something up?" Sakura asked, eying him warily.

"Nope!" Kakashi chirped. "You're actually just where you need to be! I'm just here to part with some words of advice before part one of the exam."

Naruto waved at him impatiently to go on.

"Good luck!"

Sasuke rolled his eyes while his teammates shouted abuse at their teacher. He did shit like this all the time, what did they expect?

"Come on you two," he said after they ran out of steam, "let's go."

When the three of them entered the examination room, Naruto had to suppress an impressed whistle.

"That's…" Sakura grimaced. "A lot of people, actually."

"Keep quiet?" Sasuke suggested, glancing warily at Naruto. But Naruto just agreed as readily as Sakura did, so they found an open trio of seats and claimed them.

Unfortunately, their 'keep quiet and don't attract attention' plan was doomed to fail as soon as Team Ten entered the room; Ino immediately launched herself at Sasuke as soon as she laid eyes upon him. Neither Sakura nor Naruto moved to protect him, since she was a fellow Leaf ninja and not likely to murder the object of her affections. Sasuke, in return, glared at them both.

Shikamaru, Choji at his heels, slid over to Sakura and gave Sasuke a sympathetic, but unapologetic look. He easily started a mental game with Sakura- chess, this time.

Not long after that, Team Eight entered, Kiba boasting loudly over his skills while Shino and Hinata hung back, clearly at least a little embarrassed to be seen with him in such a place. Naruto winced, wondering if that was what he was like most of the time.

Sakura, seeing his cringe, told him, "yes, that is exactly what you fucking look like, Naruto," clearly guessing what he was thinking about.

"Remind me later to _stop,"_ he told her.

She grinned, like Sayuri had after spotting a rabbit to catch, and said "oh don't worry. I'll definitely remember you said that just now. I'm going to make a proper quiet ninja out of you now that you've asked for my help."

Naruto paled. "Hey, Ino, get off my teammate! We need him alive and breathing! You choking the shit out of him isn't good for that!"

Sakura snorted. "Coward."

"Well, that _was_ rather frightening, Sakura," Shikamaru pointed out. "Knight to D6."

"Heh, at least a few of you aren't making fools of yourselves. Rookies. Every year, without fail, the host village sends rookies into the chunin exams and they always piss off the rest of us who have a little bit of experience."

Sakura looked up at the older genin that approached them. Something about him didn't feel right, so she kicked Shikamaru's ankle and smiled at the older genin.

"Well, you know how it is," she said demurely, "some boys are just…rough around the edges. My boys are like that. Naruto's a hot headed idiot and Sasuke's an asocial genius. They can't help but bicker."

Shikamaru stared at her, and then looked at the older genin with a calculating glance.

The genin smacked his forehead. "I'm so sorry! I haven't even introduced myself! Kabuto Yakushi. I'm guessing you two are Sakura Haruno of Team Seven and Shikamaru Nara of Team ten?"

Alarm bells went off in the back of her head, but she forced a surprised smile on her face. "Yeah, how'd you know? We can't be that famous!"

"On the contrary, you're rather well known in certain circles! My team's jonin sensei loves to talk about you guys. My cards even say you were sent as back up for a C-rank turned A-rank. That's pretty impressive for baby genin, to be honest."

Shikamaru steepled his fingers. "Yeah, Team Seven was our back up on that. Where'd you hear that, again?"

Kabuto reached into one of his equipment pouches, and pulled out a deck of cards. "I _heard_ from my jonin sensei, but I also have them listed on one of these cards."

"They're blank."

Sasuke, who had finally extracted himself from Ino with Naruto's help, interrupted, "no they aren't. The ink is saturated with chakra. Sakura, remind me to get some of that."

Some days, Sakura cursed her eidetic memory. "Sure, you can come with me to help Naruto pick out a less obnoxious outfit later."

"What!? I asked you to remind me to stop acting like Kiba! I said nothing about an outfit change!"

Sasuke gave Naruto a scathing once over. "The jacket you found on our first C-rank was an improvement, but the orange pants have got to go. How you sneak around in safety cone orange, I'll never know. I'd lend you pants, but you're shorter than I am."

"Did you just call me short!?"

"_Boys."_

Sasuke and Naruto ceased their arguing immediately.

"Thank you."

Before Kabuto could explain about his cards, the examiner entered the room, slamming the door open and striding over to stand behind the desk at the front of the classroom. Sakura hissed. She knew who this was, and warned Naruto and Sasuke with a swift ankle-kick and a Look each, mouthing 'Intel and Interrogation Unit'.

"You all have thirty seconds to find a seat! Anyone not sitting by the end of those thirty seconds will be ejected from the classroom and you will fail this chunin exams. Time begins _now."_

There was a chaotic shuffling for a few moments, but everyone in the room found a seat by the end of the countdown.

"This is a paper test. There are ten questions. You start with ten points, and every question you get wrong will deduct one point from your score. Anyone caught cheating will get three points deducted from your test. Anyone with less than five points will fail. If one teammate fails, the entire team fails. Seats will be assigned. Line up and take a number, tests will be passed out shortly."

Team Seven ended up spreading out around the room. Naruto at the front of the room, Sakura in the center towards the left, and Sasuke further back and to the right.

"Begin!"

Sakura flipped her test over and scoffed. She could do this, no problem.

And then she remembered Naruto had failed almost all of his tests in the academy. They were _doomed._

Then she felt chakra attach to her left hand, and she let it fall limp. Sasuke had done this once before, after Wave, when she asked further about attaching chakra strings to people. He'd made her throw a shuriken, and while it had been shaky and her aim had been horrifically bad, he'd still managed to make her throw fairly straight.

'_Don't worry about Naruto. I'll copy your answers and do this to Naruto.'_

She sighed in relief and began writing as soon as he let go of her hand.

Sasuke quickly copied down her answers as she answered them, staring at her hand with his Sharingan. He'd remembered to put a mild genjutsu over his eyes, like Kakashi taught him to, so that nobody would see that he'd activated it already.

Once she was done, he glanced at the back of Naruto's head and felt a pang of pity for him. He was sitting, gripping his hair tightly, with his head lying on the desk. He attached a chakra string to Naruto's left hand, and gently extracted it from Naruto's hair.

Naruto stared at his arm in horror. He wondered if the Kyuubi was taking over his body, but didn't dare make a fuss in case the examiner failed his team.

Then his hand started writing.

'_Don't panic, idiot. It's Sasuke. Relax your arm so I can write down the answers.'_

He breathed out a sigh of relief. It was just Sasuke. He relaxed his arm like Sasuke asked, and watched in fascination as his off-hand wrote answers in handwriting more legible than his own.

* * *

><p>The three of them sat quietly for the rest of the hour.<p>

Naruto had flipped his paper back over and showed one of the watchers a deck of cards, silently asking if he could play with them. The watcher took the cards, flipped through them, and finding that they were plain playing cards, handed them back with a sharp nod. So Naruto ended up playing game after game of solitaire.

Sakura had also flipped over her paper and was working on the Itachi Cypher, which she'd memorized. There was one symbol that was bugging her and she _knew_ it had to be something simple, since it was repeated multiple times.

Sasuke, on the other hand, had spotted Kankuro, and was trying to figure out how to unseal his tiny practice puppet to scare the shit out of him. Practice puppets were often snake-like, and Kankuro was _terrified_ of snakes.

he never got his chance, since Kankuro left for the bathroom to talk with his puppet- the bastard had gone and bought an eye-camera- and when he got back, the examiner immediately started the tenth question.

"If you fail this last question," he warned, with a smug smirk, "you'll never be able to take the chunin exams again."

Sasuke covered his ears when the room burst into angry exclamations.

Thankfully, that only lasted a moment, since the examiner held up a hand for silence and the entire room obeyed.

"You got unlucky," he said bluntly, "you got me. My name is Ibiki Morino. I run the Torture and Interrogation Unit in this village. What I say, goes. And if I say you don't pass? Then you don't fucking pass. Now, if you think you won't be able to answer this next question, raise your hand and you and your team may leave."

Immediately several hands raised, much to the dismay of several teammates.

Naruto twisted in his seat to look at Sakura questioningly.

She shook her head and patted the air with her hand: 'stay down.'

He twisted to look at Sasuke. Sasuke nodded at Sakura: 'listen to her.'

So he kept quiet and kept his hands in his lap. Sasuke and Sakura had his back. He couldn't fail this, not with them helping him.

Over half of the participants filtered out of the room.

"Anybody else?" Ibiki asked idly.

Naruto clenched his jaw.

Ibiki noticed. "You have something to say, blondie?"

"Everyone who left is a _coward,"_ Naruto spat. "If they can't trust in their skill or their teammates' skill to back them up, they don't deserve to be chunin!"

Sakura slapped her forehead. There went filtering out the competition.

"Way to fucking go, you flaming moron," she muttered.

Ibiki laughed. "I like you, kid. Anyone else want to leave?"

Nobody raised their hands.

"Alright. You all pass."

Naruto let go of the breath he was holding, shocked.

"Are you serious!?"

"Holy shit."

"No way man, we went through that ridiculous test for nothing!"

Ibiki slammed his hands down on the desk and the room fell silent again.

"The first part of this test was to measure your sneakiness. Three of you were chunin plants, who had the answers."

They stood and walked to the front of the room

"The second part of this test was to see if you were ready to take risks that a chunin would need to. Everyone who left? They're not ready. They might never be ready. But you all? I can already see some who are ready to be chunin. Though, the next test-"

A window shattered and a tan and white blur flew through it. Two kunai landed into the wood paneling with one single _thunk. _Standing there, after the chaos, was a woman wearing a fishnet bodysuit, a short skit, a tan trench coat, and little else.

"Aw, hell yes!" Sakura shouted.

Sasuke nearly snapped his neck to stare at her incredulously, and Naruto twisted around to give her the same expression.

"Anko-nee-chan, you're in charge of the next portion!?" she asked excitedly, ignoring her teammates.

Anko pointed at her. "Yes I am! My name's Anko Mitarashi, and I'm the examiner for the second part of the chunin exams! It looks like Ibiki didn't do a half bad job thinning the herd, great job, Ibiki. But I'm going to cut this group down by at least another half! Report to training ground 44!"

Sakura fist-pumped.

On their way out of the room, she grabbed her teammates.

"Sasuke, did you grab your entire antidote selection?"

"…yes?"

"Good, we'll probably need it. Naruto, can Kitty hunt rabbits or fish?"

"Yeah, of course. She'd a great mouser, so I'm sure rabbits won't be a big deal for her. Why?"

Sakura grinned widely. "Survival exercise. We're going into…"

* * *

><p>"The Forest of Death! Known officially as training ground Forty-four, it is the second most dangerous training ground in the entire Leaf Village. The number one, of course, being the ANBU training ground. Among the dangers inside this fence here are giant tigers, giant flesh eating leeches, massive amounts of poisonous plants and animals alike, and the deadly Fire Country drop bear!"<p>

Sakura leaned into Sasuke's ear, "drop bears aren't real. She tried the same thing on me when she brought me in here. Scared me shitless, only to find out it was a huge prank."

Sasuke snorted, and nudged Naruto, who was beginning to panic. "It's a prank, idiot."

Naruto drew up, glaring at Sasuke. "I knew that. I totally knew that. Shut up, Kitty, I did too!"

Kitty purred innocently from his shoulder, rubbing against his jacket, getting black, white, and orange fur all over it. The white fur was especially visible against the black material.

Sasuke snorted.

Sakura snapped her fingers in front of their faces. "Boys, pay attention. I'll be fine in here, but you'll have to listen to me, got that?"

Blinking, Sasuke nodded, frowning at her. "Of course. Clearly you know the terrain better than Naruto or me, so you have main command for this one. I'll take ambushing command, and Naruto can take ambushed command. Fair?"

Sakura thought it over for a second. "Yeah, that's fair."

Naruto opened his mouth to complain, but Anko interrupted him with a kunai flying past him, grazing his cheek. Kitty hissed, all of her fur fluffing up angrily. Naruto had to grab her before she could attack Anko, and got a few scratches on his arm for the trouble.

A few feet away, Temari saw this, and watched in horror as the cuts healed before her eyes. She turned to Kankuro urgently, speaking quietly.

"What the fuck was that for, lady!?" Naruto demanded, trying to calm Kitty, "you coulda taken her head off you crazy bitch!"

Anko smirked at him. "Guess you'll start listening to me then, won't you?"

Naruto snarled at her silently.

"As I was saying," Anko continued, "your objective is to make it to the tower at the center of the training grounds with both an Earth scroll and a Heaven scroll. When you're done signing the waivers being passed around, you can bring them up to me and trade them for _either_ a Heaven scroll _or_ an Earth scroll. Don't open them. You'll definitely regret it. Oh, and one last thing…"

The genin surrounding her stared at her in trepidation.

"Don't die!"

* * *

><p>Anko greeted Sakura cheerfully when they entered the covered stand, where Anko and a pair of chunin were giving out the scrolls in exchange for waivers.<p>

"Seriously, though, I'm gonna be pissed if you fail this, Sakura-chan," she told her while handing her a Heaven scroll. "Especially since you know the area. Make me proud, kiddo. If you make chunin I can take you on as an apprentice now that I'm a special jonin!"

Sakura grinned. "Don't worry, we're gonna ace these."

"Damn right you are. And remember, watch out for drop bears!"

Sakura laughed, and they left the covered stand. A chunin then escorted them to gate 27.

"Are you sure drop bears aren't real!?" Naruto demanded.

Sakura waved him off. "Of course they're not. Anko herself told me they're not real after she brought me in here the first time and scared the shit out of me."

"I suggest we discuss strategy," Sasuke interrupted smoothly, stopping Naruto's demands for further reassurance before they began.

"Likely targets?" Sakura asked.

Naruto huffed. "That mist team looked like a genjutsu team. Sasuke's eyeballs can see through illusions. I say we go after them."

Sasuke nodded in agreement. "Them or the Sound team. I'm pretty sure the girl's a genjutsu specialist as well, and the other two look like standard hard hitters."

"Alright then. Naruto, does Kitty have their scent?"

"The mist guys, sure. I didn't even notice any Sound guys. Since when was there a Sound Village, anyway?"

Sakura shrugged. "Anko-nee-chan was complaining about them a few months ago, about how they popped up outta the blue, so I guess just recently. It'll be a good opportunity to gauge them, anyway. Either way, I want this done in under three days. I know I can make it to the tower mostly alone in four, and with Anko I can make it in two. We get the scroll, we get to the tower. No muss, no fuss."

"Got it."

"We can fuckin' do this!"

Sakura offered her fist to them. Naruto tapped his knuckles on hers, and then Sasuke pressed his to hers when Naruto reached back. The boys shared a fist bump, and then a whistle pierced the air: time to enter the forest.

* * *

><p>They found the Mist team easily enough the morning after they were let into the Forest of Death. They were huddled together, whispering amongst themselves.<p>

Sasuke's Sharingan was already blazing.

'Real,' he signed to his teammates once he was sure. 'Fox, traps.'

Fox had become Naruto's call sign after he'd picked up the jacket from the bandit camp in their first C-rank. He'd pouted about it for a while, but accepted it eventually. Sakura and Sasuke still didn't quite understand his weird thing about foxes, they just accepted it as a quirk of his.

Naruto crept out silently, working in tandem with Kitty to lay out traps in the nearby area. She'd put kunai in the ground for him to lace a trip wire through, and marked good spots for him to lay down rope traps or bear traps. Bear traps weren't his favorite thing, since they were so damaging, but Sasuke had insisted they take the other participants seriously. So he used his sharpest traps and explosive notes instead of smoke bombs.

After two minutes, Naruto signaled Sasuke that the traps were prepped and ready.

Sasuke waved Sakura on, and she jumped down into the clearing not five feet from the Mist team.

"hey, boys, I'm wondering what kind of scroll you have?" she asked in a sweet tone and a dangerous look in her eyes, "If you've got the one we need, we'll let you go easy if you just give it to us. If you don't, we'll move on."

"We're not telling you shit, tree-hugger," one of them told her factually.

Sakura sighed heavily. "If you're gonna be like that, then."

And then she attacked, taking down the closest one to her in two easy strikes.

The other two fled, one in the direction of Naruto's traps, the other in Sasuke's direction. She patted down the one she'd attacked, ignoring the snap followed by a scream of agony from Naruto's side. She came up empty and went looking for Sasuke.

She found him battling the one who had run in his direction. Sasuke seemed to be handling it, so she waited on the sidelines. Gods knew Sasuke could turn into a pouty child if he was interrupted during a fight, real or not.

Naruto appeared at her side a moment later, holding an Earth scroll in his hand. He looked a little sick, and wore a grim expression she'd last seen on their first C-rank.

"Did you have to…?"

He flexed his jaw. "No, but his leg is ruined. Unless he gets immediate medical attention, he's prolly fucked for walking on that without a limp. There's a reason I didn't want to use that trap."

"Anko said we could use deadly force." Sakura shrugged and waved at Sasuke's fight. "Clearly they took her words to heart. Why shouldn't we have had?"

Naruto shrugged but had no reply.

Sasuke finally caught the mist nin in his newest puppet, Tiger, which he'd only finished building the day before the exams begun. She was designed after the cat he'd sketched a few times in Naruto's apartment, and was less of an attacking puppet and more of a capturing puppet. Her "belly" was hollow, and her mouth, throat, and chest could peel back to "swallow" an average sized human.

The Mist genin banged on the inside of her and screamed for Sasuke to let him go.

Sasuke painstakingly ignored his pleas for help, and looked to Sakura and Naruto. "Any luck on the scroll?"

Naruto held it up.

"Good. I'll knock this guy out and we can go on our way."

* * *

><p>It was their second day of the exams that they ran into trouble.<p>

And that trouble was named Orochimaru.

They were setting down to camp for the night, when an eerie laugh ran out through the trees.

Sakura tensed up. She was sure she should know that exact laugh from something.

"Sasuke-kun. You're even stronger than I expected, taking those Mist genin out," a man's voice said, "I'm impressed."

Sakura kicked Sasuke's ankle and mouthed, 'run.'

Sasuke, not one to disregard his teammate's advice, stood, brushing his shorts off in a seemingly casual way. He tried to conceal the shaking of his hands. Sakura looked more scared than he'd ever seen her, but he had to do this delicately.

"That's nice," he told the voice, "but you know? We were just stopping for a few minutes. We want to beat the record on first to get to the tower."

The voice purred.

Kitty's fur stood on end. This was a _predator._

"Ah, I can understand that. Well, I was going to leave you a parting gift, but I think that maybe I'll give it to you later. I wouldn't want to interfere with your score in the exams. I'm very… invested… in you, after all. I'll see you soon, Sasuke-kun."

Team Seven bolted, leaving behind their camp completely.

They made it to the tower in just over four hours. All of them were exhausted, even Naruto. The boys collapsed against each other, but Sakura forced herself to stand and shout.

"Anko! Nee-chan! I need to talk to you right the fuck now! It seriously can't wait! I don't even care about the exam! This is serious!"

Nobody replied.

"Anko! I think Orochimaru was in the forest! You _know_ I wouldn't lie about that!"

In a puff of smoke, Anko was standing in front of Sakura and had picked her up by the front of her red shirt.

"Sakura-chan, tell me the entire story, right the fuck now."

She did.

Anko fell on her ass and put her head in her hands.

"Fuck, I have to go. I have to tell the Hokage. Stay in the tower. There's ANBU all over it. You _should _be safe."

And then she was gone, leaving the three genin seemingly alone.

Sakura flopped to the ground next to her boys, and lay her head on Sasuke's stomach.

"This Orochimaru is bad news, huh?" Naruto mumbled.

"Big, bad news," She agreed.

Sasuke scoffed. "Well, once we beat these exams, we'll be chunin, and we can get higher level training. I bet we'll make jonin in a year."

Sakura huffed with tired laughter. "Yeah, let's do this."

She lay back and stared at the far wall, which had words painted on.

"Shit, I guess we have to open the scrolls now?" she asked the air.

Naruto shrugged. She couldn't see him, but she felt the action through Sasuke, since he was propped up against Naruto's shoulder.

Sasuke handed her the Heaven scroll and Naruto handed her the Earth scroll.

She opened them, recognized them as a summoning scroll for a person, and threw them a few feet away. After battling another team and then running for four straight hours with only a short break between the actions, she thought that they didn't deserve to be stepped on by anyone.

Iruka appeared in the smoke.

"You guys made it!" he sounded surprised. "And so early! I think you beat our last record!"

Sasuke grinned weakly. "Glad that worked, then."

"What?"

"Nothing. Are you here to explain that?" Sakura asked, waving lazily to the far wall.

"Oh, yeah, it means…"

After Iruka's short speech, they were escorted to a room with three beds, and left alone.

Naruto, without asking for permission, shoved two of the beds together and tied them together so they wouldn't separate if someone ended up sleeping in the middle. Which ended up being him, with Sakura closer to the door and Sasuke closer to the wall.

He'd protested, naturally, but Sakura's logic ("Orochimaru clearly wants you for something. We can protect you better if you're further from the door,") overrode his pride, and he gave in.

That's how the spent the third day: just sleeping. Sakura got up once to pee, and Naruto clambered over her twice to fetch ration bars from his pack for the three of them. But mostly, they slept and recovered their energy. They may have only fought one team, but then they ran at top speed, including chakra enhancement, for _four hours._

Needless to say, they felt the deserved the rest. Kitty and Ayame, Sakura's blue-grey, mean-looking dog summon kept watch in their stead.

* * *

><p>The fourth day, Sakura forced the three of them out of the bed and into the rest of the tower to scout out who else had gotten as far as they had.<p>

The team from Sand had apparently made almost as good time as they had, and had arrived just hours after they did. Sasuke got mildly distracted talking to Kankuro about puppets, which _almost_ became a fight, but Sakura and Gaara ordered them apart. (Gaara also spent the entire time that Team Seven was there staring directly at Naruto and it creeped him out a lot.)

Team Ten had gotten through, though Choji had been hit with a genjutsu that had fucked his balance completely, and Ino had gotten her ass handed to her and couldn't walk without limping.

Kabuto's team had passed, though Team Seven only dropped by their room for a few seconds before Sakura's mental alarm bells went off and she dragged them away.

An older genin team from leaf that consisted of a boy in a green jumpsuit, a Hyuuga, and a girl who had unnaturally heavy footsteps had tucked themselves into a far corner of the tower as soon as they arrived, likely to tend to a nasty-looking scratch the jumpsuit boy had gotten.

Team Eight had also made it through pretty much intact, though Kiba seemed to be missing a chunk of hair for some reason.

At noon on the fifth day, they were gathered in what appeared to be an arena.

The Hokage gave a speech about how the Chunin exams were a replacement for war, and then announced that, unless several people bowed out, that there would be preliminaries.

Kabuto's team was the first to raise their hands. "Sorry, I'm out of chakra, so is Misumi, and Yoroi busted his wrist too badly to go on. We forfeit."

Team Ten burst into angry whispering before Ino and Choji raised their hands.

"I can't fight due to a limp, and Choji can't fight due to a genjutsu that went haywire. He, definitely, needs to get to the hospital proper."

Shino raised his hand. "Kiba and I are unharmed, but his ninken and my kikaichu are incapacitated, which would hinder us in battle. We forfeit."

Naruto's neck nearly snapped to look over at Kiba and Akamaru worriedly. Akamaru was clearly alive, but didn't seem to be able to move very well. That Kiba was quiet while his teammate forfeited for them both was a testament to how injured Akamaru had to be.

Kankuro also raised his hand. "I just don't think I'm ready to be chunin yet."

Sakura grabbed Sasuke to stop him from shouting at his friend from the Sand Village, but it didn't stop him from glaring a hole in his head. Kankuro noticed and shrugged apologetically.

"That seems to be six, then. Does anyone else wish to forfeit?"

Reluctantly, the boy in the green jumpsuit raised his hand. "I have been poisoned and I have been told that if I fight with it in my system, I risk death."

Nobody else raised their hands.

"Alright then. You will all be escorted out of the Forest. In one month's time, you will convene at the main arena in the Village proper, and there will be a tournament. Please come up and take a number so that we can create the matches.

One by one, the genin approached the Hokage and took a number from the bowl he held.

Temari held up the slip with "#2" written on it.

Sakura held up four fingers when she pulled hers.

Hinata quietly handed the examiner her number: 6.

"Eight," Gaara announced.

Shikamaru groaned at his number, knowing his battle would be a troublesome one, "three."

Neji smirked when he read his. "Five."

Naruto picked out of the last slips, and ended up with number one.

Sasuke pulled the number seven.

"The match ups, then, are this:

"Naruto Uzumaki versus Temari of the Sand.

"Shikamaru Nara versus Sakura Haruno.

"Neji Hyuuga versus Hinata Hyuuga.

"And finally, Sasuke Uchiha versus Gaara of the Sand."

The Hokage smiled. "I wish all of you the very best of luck."

* * *

><p>It was Sakura's turn to host the sleepover immediately after the exams.<p>

"So, we can't train together," she told them.

Naruto didn't look up from where he was brushing Ran's fur. "Well, of course not. We're going to end up fighting in the last rounds."

Sasuke smirked at that.

"Which means we have to decide who can claim Kakashi."

Frowning, Naruto looked up. "I think we should share him and get our own personal tutors. You have Anko, Sakura. And Sasuke, didn't you say something about your puppet teacher coming up from the Sand? I can probably get Hana-nee-chan to work with me in exchange for volunteer hours at the clinic. That leaves up time for Kakashi to split between us three."

Sakura stared at him in surprised.

"What? Don't look at me like that! I have good ideas sometimes!"

Sasuke nodded. "I like this idea as well, since Kakashi still isn't finished helping me learn my Sharingan, he's not done training you and your dogs, Sakura. I'm not sure what he's teaching Naruto, but it has to be something useful, otherwise he wouldn't be arguing against claiming him."

Naruto grinned.

Sakura yawned widely. "Well, if that's settled, I'm ready for bed. Hit the lights, would you, Sasuke?"

Sasuke reached out with a chakra string and flicked off the light.

* * *

><p>Two weeks into the month before the final part of the chunin exams, Sakura was dragging Sasuke and Naruto along on her mission of forcing Naruto to dress better. They'd ended up convincing him to wear mesh under his fox jacket, and black pants wrapped up with tape at the calf.<p>

They were on their way back to Naruto's apartment when they spotted him.

"There's a pervert peeping on the girl's baths!" he exclaimed, pointing.

Sasuke punched Naruto in the arm. "How do you know that he'd peeping in on the girl's side? Maybe he's gay."

"No, no, that's definitely the girl's side! Trust me, I know!"

"… Naruto. Please tell me you've never peeped on girls in the hot springs."

"Well, when I was little I di- OW, SASUKE!"

Sakura sighed, set her purchases on the ground where Naruto and Sasuke had dropped theirs, and strode over to the man Naruto had pointed out.

"I hope you're done with that by the time Sasuke's done attacking Naruto. Sasuke's weird about privacy and you're definitely violating more than one persons' privacy," she warned him before wandering a little bit away to the men's side of the hot springs to take a look.

The man stared at the three of them incredulously.

They looked so familiar, and he felt like he'd seen this exact scene before. Then he remembered he had, only…. It was the girl that was beating on the idiot and the dark haired one wandering off to look at something that interested him.

He stood up and walked over to the fighting boys, separated them by grabbing the scruffs of their clothes, and asked, "What team are you?

"Team Seven," the answered in unison.

"If you're satisfied," Sasuke growled, "then put me down so I can finish beating a lesson into this idiot's skull."

Naruto waved his arms panickedly, "look, Sasuke, I was like, nine, okay!? And I only did it because I was trying to create an anti-pervert technique I swear!"

"Are you serious!? I'm not even sure that's any better!"

Sakura returned, smiling at him sweetly, which set the hair on the back of his neck on end.

"If you wouldn't mind, I can take them. They're done fighting for today, anyway. _Aren't you, boys?"_

Their jaws snapped shut and they nodded. Naruto was more enthusiastic about it than Sasuke, who mostly looked sulky about the command.

Jiraiya set them down, and asked, "Who's your sensei?"

Sakura gave him a calculative look. "Why do you want to know?"

"I was on the original Team Seven. Don't you recognize me? I'm Jiraiya," he told her, puffing his chest out proudly, "Of the three Sennin! The SUPER PERVERT!"

"Oh, now that you mention it, I can see it. You should update your registration photo, you know," Sakura admonished, pointing a finger at him like he was a child that had been caught stealing a cookie from the jar, "You're a lot older now than you were, enough that I didn't even recognize you."

He admired her audacity.

"Look, just tell me who your sensei is," he asked again.

"What do we get out of telling you?" Sasuke asked instead.

"Uh…"

Naruto cackled and said, "Ooh, I know! The Sennin are supposed to be unmatched badasses, right? Teach us something awesome and we'll tell you!"

Sakura snapped her fingers at him, grinning. "I like that idea, Naruto! Here's the deal, Jiraiya-sama, you teach each of us something we don't already know, and we'll tell you who our teacher is!"

Jiraiya had the feeling that they were being trained by Kakashi from the way they were behaving, but he decided to indulge them anyway, since they seemed a lot less volatile than his Team Seven had been. He also allowed himself to indulge in the thought that maybe, just maybe, what he would teach them would give them a reason to continue staying together.

"Alright," he told them slowly, "how about Summoning?"

Sakura shook her head, "nope, I can do that already."

Naruto scrunched up his nose. "I've got Kitty. What do I need a summoning contract for?"

Jiraiya looked to Sasuke hopefully. All he wanted was to pass on the toad contract, and he'd give it to the quiet, dark haired one of the trio if he had to.

Sasuke nodded slowly and activated his Sharingan. "Show me the hand signs."

"Let's move to a training ground first," Sakura suggested, "I think 38 is nearby."

Jiraiya agreed, and the three genin gathered up their dropped purchases.

Once there, he showed Sasuke the hand signs, but warned him, "it's better if you sign a contract first."

Sakura tilted her head at that. "You can summon without having signed a contract?"

"Well, yes," Jiraiya admitted, "but the technique will reverse-summon you to the land of the summons that most fit you. It's a little iffy, though, because some of the summon animals can be quite vicious."

Sasuke paused, weighing the pros and cons in his head. On one hand, the only techniques he knew at the moment were some Uchiha fire techniques and puppetry, and adding a summoning contract to his repertoire would be highly advantageous. On the other hand, he could get an unruly summons.

"Aw, c'mon Sasuke, don't be a sourpuss!" Naruto taunted. "Sakura, I bet you ten ryo that he gets something cooler than dogs."

Sakura scoffed. "Yeah, right. My pack is amazing. He'd be hard pressed to beat them!"

Sasuke scowled, and in retaliation for their taunting, performed the summoning technique. He vanished in a puff of smoke.

Naruto held his fist out towards Sakura, and she tapped her knuckles against his.

Jiraiya stared at them.

"He's so gullible," Naruto explained, "you wouldn't believe it from the way he looks but if you taunt him just right…"

"… He'll do anything. But, as soon as he comes back, we're going to have to have a conversation about safe and unsafe risks," Sakura added, "This is borderline unsafe, and K- our sensei would have ripped him a new one if he'd been here."

Jiraiya nodded slowly. "Okay then. How about… Hm, you look like a ground or water type, pinkie."

Sakura shrugged. "Hell if I know. What've you got in mind?"

"How about…. Swamp of the Underworld? It's pretty chakra-intensive, but I bet you could handle making a small swamp."

Sakura scowled. "I don't have a lot of chakra, but I have perfect control. Can I still do it?"

Jiraiya shrugged. "I don't see why not. Here's the seals…"

Sakura memorized them almost as quickly as Sasuke had. "How much chakra should I put into it?"

"As a first try? I'd say enough to water walk. It should be about as small as a puddle-"

Sakura slapped the ground with her hand and, very clearly, said, "Swamp of the Underworld!"

And the dirt in front of her, in about a three foot radius, became watery mud and sank them about a foot deep.

Jiraiya whistled. "When you said perfect control, I didn't think you meant it literally. That was really all you use to water walk? I barely felt your chakra pulse."

Sakura scowled again. "First off, I'm a girl. Girls, unfortunately, naturally have less chakra than boys. Two, my family is civilian. Three, I'm more of a taijutsu person. The most I was able to do before our sensei showed me how to summon was lacing my taijutsu with chakra enhancements, like Tsunade-hime did."

Naruto made a face. "Yeah, and that _hurts_ Sakura-chan."

"It's supposed to, idiot."

"As for you, blondie," Jiraiya interrupted, "Can that cat of yours use chakra?"

"Of course she can!" Naruto scoffed, "She's a ninja cat! She doesn't have a lot, but she can use almost as much as Sakura-chan can!"

"Do you know any fire or wind techniques?"

"I know one that puts campfires out…?"

Jiraiya grinned. "How about I teach you Great Breakthrough, and then teach your cat there Flame Bullet? If you use them in succession-"

Naruto cheered loudly. "It makes a bigger fire! Oh man, that means I can do that thing we did on training ground 12 and in Wave!"

Sakura shook her head, smiling. "You don't know what you've done, Jiraiya-sama."

Jiraiya shrugged and showed Naruto the hand signs for Great Breakthrough, and showed Kitty the seal-less version of Fire Bullet.

Upon prompting, Kitty produced a small flame bullet. Naruto, after the fire had gone out, produced a huge gust of powerful wind that knocked Jiraiya over. (Sakura had been thoughtful enough to stand behind Naruto so that she didn't get bowled over too.)

"Jeez, kid, not so much next time!" Jiraiya complained, picking himself up and brushing off his pants.

Sasuke reappeared in a puff of smoke, and stumbled to the ground.

Naruto jumped up and ran over to him. "Hey! Sasuke, are you okay?"

"Yeah, I'm fine," he replied, sounding a little dazed, "I'm just not used to the ground right now."

Sakura gave him a puzzled look.

Sasuke smirked. "I think hawks kind of beat dogs, don't you?"

Her puzzled look turned to one of satisfaction. "Good. Now, I think you and I need to have a talk about being manipulated…"

Jiraiya turned to Naruto. "So, who's your sensei?"

"Kakashi," Naruto replied, then scowled, "and even though he's kind of annoying, he's not that bad. So don't think that just 'cause we made you teach us stuff that you can take us away from him! We're a team, no matter what!"

Jiraiya's eyebrow rose. "What made you think I wanted to take you brats away from him?"

Naruto waved his hand dismissively, "you had a weird look in your eye. Last I saw that look was years ago, when this kid was trying to steal Kitty from me because I 'didn't deserve' to own her! What a crock of shit, right? But yeah, we're sticking with Kakashi sensei until we're jonin ourselves, so don't even think about it!"

Jiraiya was surprised by Naruto's perceptiveness, but hid it. He actually had been thinking about stealing Naruto away from Kakashi for a while, but maybe it would be for the better if he didn't, if the three of them were as attached to their sensei as they were to each other.

Team Seven picked up their purchases again.

"Who's turn is it?" Sakura asked.

"Naruto's," Sasuke replied.

Jiraiya nodded decisively, and strolled off in the direction of the Hokage tower. He had a suggestion to make to his old sensei.

* * *

><p><em>yeah this took forever, sorry. and ive decided to split up the chunin exams into two parts, since this chapter ran longer than i wanted it to already. im definately taking everyones questions and requests in the reviews seriously. no guarantees that i'll do every request, but when they make sense and i can figure out how to work in it? you bet. anyway, enjoy!<em>


	7. Chapter 6

The day of the final part of the Chunin Exams, Team Seven gathered at Ichiraku for an early lunch.

"Man I can't wait to kick that Temari chick's ass!" Naruto crowed after he'd scarfed down a bowl, "me and Kitty are gonna _roast_ her!"

Sasuke groaned at the pun. "Naruto, please, stop making puns. They're terrible. And didn't I tell you that Temari uses wind techniques? She won't be as easy to beat as you think she is. She won't hesitate to snap your spine, you know."

Naruto grinned. "Yeah, but Kakashi-sensei and Hana-nee-chan taught me some cool stuff, and I bet my Flamethrower Combo is more powerful than any of her wind attacks!"

Sakura snorted. "I still can't believe you decided to name it that."

"I still can't believe you performed that technique _in my house_ last night," Sasuke grumbled, "and you're fixing that wall you burnt."

"Yeah, yeah," Naruto waved him off casually, "anyway, do you think this is gonna be tournament style?"

Sakura shrugged. "History says it could be either way. The last times we hosted the exams, it was tournament style. The time before that, it was tournament style, but not one on one fights- there were six people, and they set the winners of the three rounds against each other for the last round. So really, it's a toss-up."

Sasuke smirked. "I hope it is. Then, I could actually have an audience for when I defeat you two."

Naruto scoffed, "like you could, asshole."

Sakura smacked them both on the arm. "Boys, quit it. Besides, we all know which of us could kick both of your asses. Now shut up and finish eating. I'm _not_ going to be picking up Kakashi-sensei's bad habit, you hear me?"

Naruto and Sasuke didn't argue that. Naruto knew she could beat him with her brain, and Sasuke knew she could beat him with her fists. And both of them knew these facts very well- Kakashi had made her prove it the first time she'd boasted it.

* * *

><p>They arrived at the arena before the other combatants, and were directed to stand in the field at parade rest until the Final Exams started.<p>

The proctor then explained, "Don't worry, though, you can talk. Nobody up there can hear you right now. Once the fighting starts, though, they will. The Fourth Hokage put seals around the stadium so that the audience can hear the banter of battle- he was one for theatrics, let me tell you…"

Soon enough, though, the rest of the genin arrived, and the stands above them were filled.

While the proctor waited for a thumbs-up from the chunin manning the sound amplifier seal, the genin chatted.

Gaara zeroed in on Naruto. "You."

Naruto jumped fractionally. "Me?"

"Mother says you are like me. I want to fight you."

He paused, then tilted his head. "What the fuck does that mean?"

But before Gaara could reply, the proctor announced, "Welcome to the Final Round of the Chunin Exams!"

His voice echoed throughout the stadium, and the crowd fell quiet

"Today, eight exceptional genin from the Leaf and the Sand will compete for the title of Chunin! At the end of the battles, there could be either eight new chunin, or no new chunin! Whether they win or lose, it's all about how they perform! Now, without any further delay-

"Temari of the Sand versus Naruto Uzumaki!"

Sasuke and Sakura paused in following the other genin up to the participant's box.

"Don't lose," Sasuke commanded.

Sakura held her fist out to Naruto. He responded, as he always did, with a fist bump.

This seemed to bolster the crowd, and the cheering began as Sakura and Sasuke walked away.

Temari scoffed.

Naruto turned to her. "What's your deal?"

"Your team's a bunch of showoffs. Surprising, considering you've got Sasuke-chan on your team. What was that little display even about?" she asked, giving him a derisive glance.

Naruto let out a strangled laugh. "Sasuke-chan!? Oh, man, I can't wait to fuck with him about that. This is gonna be great!"

Temari snorted.

* * *

><p>Sakura cackled.<p>

Sasuke's face burned.

"I'll kill her," he mumbled, "one day, I swear I will."

* * *

><p>"Are you two ready, then?" the proctor asked.<p>

Naruto punched the air, and Kitty jumped down to his feet. "Yeah! Let's go!"

Temari nodded.

"Alright then. Begin!"

Temari lashed out as soon as the proctor had cleared the area, slashing her fan through the air.

Naruto bolted out of the way, and returned fire with a weak Great Breakthrough.

"You think that's gonna do anything to me?" Temari laughed. "Kid, I grew up in the _Wind Nation!_ I know more wind techniques than you can possible imagine!"

"That's alright!" Naruto replied cheerfully, "I don't need to know a whole lot of techniques! I only need to master a few!"

He created five Shadow Clones, and three of them launched themselves at Temari while Naruto prepared another Great Breakthrough. This one would be paired up with a Fire Bullet from Kitty, however, and would be the big reveal of his Flamethrower Combo.

Just as Temari destroyed the third clone, Kitty jumped onto his head and spat out a glob of fire. Naruto sent the Great Breakthrough he'd prepared under it, which spread the flames out over a large area and strengthened them.

Temari's eyes widened and she tried to dodge, but the fire was too widespread and she ended up singed.

While Naruto and Kitty were showing off their flamethrower combo, the other two clones were scrambling to set up several tripwires with minor explosives notes attached. He didn't want to completely maim her, but he definitely wanted to slow her down enough to catch her off guard.

Unfortunately, Temari noticed his traps just in time to dodge them.

Or rather, most of them.

One of the traps his clones had laid down was a triple-layered trip wire that he hadn't used since he tried to dye an ANBU's vest pink. (It didn't work. The ANBU noticed, and then told him that even if they hadn't noticed, it wouldn't have worked- their vests were metal, not cloth. He was also warned against trying again with paint.)

The layer that she triggered was a simple stink and smoke bomb that spread over a large area.

Temari hadn't ever experienced such a trap, and gagged and coughed while trying to stumble out of the smog.

Naruto and Kitty performed one last Flamethrower Combo, and Temari was left on the ground, scorched and still gagging.

The proctor jumped back into the arena and knelt beside her.

"Temari of the Sand has forfeited! Naruto Uzumaki wins!"

The crowd roared.

A huge grin spread across Naruto's face, and he threw a fist into the air triumphantly.

* * *

><p>Sakura and Sasuke greeted Naruto when he arrived in the Participants' box.<p>

"Way to actually back up your boasts this time, idiot." Sasuke said.

From him? Such a phrase was high praise.

Sakura laughed. "What he said! Now, was that the bomb you used on Kiba way back in the academy?"

"Cause he was makin' fun of that one quiet girl?" Naruto asked, and when she nodded he said, "Yeah! One of my cats brought it to me 'cause they were super grossed out by it. They didn't notice it before cause I had old clothes piled on top of it, but then you _burned them all_ and so I guess they could smell it."

Sakura sniffed. "One, those clothes were horrible. Two, they weren't doing you any good at the bottom of your closet, they were just taking up space. You should _thank me_ for cleaning up your messes."

She tossed her mohawk to the other side of her head and moved to stalk off.

"Hey," Shikamaru greeted them, "I wanna talk to you guys about something."

Sakura spun on her heel and returned.

"What's up, Shikamaru?"

He shifted uncomfortably. "Look, you know how Sasuke went to the Sand Village for a few years? And you remember that red head kid that me and Choji were friends with?"

Sakura wiggled her hand in the air uncertainly. "There were a lot of kids at the academy, okay? And I didn't exactly have friends, you know?"

"Well, anyway, that was Gaara. He came here from the Sand Village in exchange for Sasuke. The thing is, he was a little… off. Back then, I mean. I and Choji kind of helped him out, but I know we didn't fix him. Trouble is, he came back a lot crazier than he left. He was friendly to me and Choji, but so far I've seen him threaten death to several people with a completely serious expression. He _meant _it. So, Sasuke, if I were you, I'd be really careful when you fight him."

Sasuke initially wanted to scoff, but then he looked over at Gaara.

The red head was staring at him intently, with one corner of his lips upturned slightly. It was an expression of anticipation, and it set the hairs on the back of his neck on end.

"I'll keep that in mind." He promised.

Shikamaru nodded, and turned to walk away.

He paused. "oh, and I don't know if it's relevant, but he's got about as much chakra as Naruto does, and he can control sand."

Naruto froze, and stared after Shikamaru as he walked away. Suddenly, his run in with him made sense.

Sakura punched him after a few seconds. "Hey, what's wrong?"

Naruto turned away and grabbed at Sasuke's shirt. "You will forfeit your match. You're going to explain that he's way too strong for you."

"What? No!"

"Sasuke." Naruto stared him in the eye. "Trust me. He is too strong for you. He will kill you with no hesitation, and if I'm right, he's got more power than you can imagine."

Sasuke shoved him away. "Shikamaru said he has as much as you do!"

Naruto nodded. "And I've never run out. _Ever._ That, and the vibes I've been getting from him? I have a bad feeling that if I'm right and you try to fight him? You'll die. I'm _serious._"

"How do you know?" Sasuke demanded. "Tell me, and I'll consider it."

"I-" Naruto thought back to the beginning of the Third Exam. "Okay, look. He and I share a thing in common, and he's more willing to use that thing than I am. Which is a bad thing. It's a really bad thing. Technically, I'm not sure if I'm even allowed to tell you? It's like this huge big S-Rank secret, okay. I mean, I'd tell you if I could-"

Sasuke scoffed. "Clearly it can't be that bad if it's something you two share in common. You're a little bit of an idiot."

But Sakura was staring at Naruto intently.

Naruto glanced to her, panicked and looking for support. "Sakura, back me up!"

"Give me a hint first." She demanded. "Don't tell me if it'll get us in trouble. Just... A hint."

Naruto hesitated, and then admitted, "It has to do with October tenth."

Sakura paused, then her eyes widened in horror. "It has to do with the Kyuubi!?"

That made Sasuke listen.

"My birthday is also October tenth," Naruto added quietly.

Sakura let out a short, incredulous laugh. "Are you saying-?"

Naruto shrugged.

"Are you _seriously_ telling me you're a fucking jinchuriki!?" she punched his shoulder. "Why didn't you say anything? I could have used that information! Fucking- Damn it Naruto, you don't hide shit like that from your teammates! Fucking hell…."

Then she stopped.

"Fuck, Sasuke, you can't go up against him. If he's using the demon's power-"

"wait." Sasuke held up his hand. "Explain. What's a jinchuriki?"

Sakura groaned. "You boys and your allergy to books. A jinchuriki is a person who has one of the nine tailed beasts sealed in them. There's a shocking amount of information in the library about them, for some reason. From what I've read, some people can get deals out of these demons to use their chakra, but sometimes the demon makes the person go crazy. Apparently, all of the Ichibi hosts have been bat shit, which means that this guy is probably the jinchuriki of the Ichibi."

Sasuke and Naruto both stared at her.

"What? I have an eidetic memory! I can't help it!"

Sasuke shook his head. "I don't want to forfeit unless you think there is a one hundred percent chance of death for me."

Sakura paused and calculated the odds in her head. "It leans towards eighty percent, to be honest. And only so low because he's our age. Seriously, I'm not sure I'd fight him if I were you."

Sasuke grit his teeth and looked away.

The crowd gasped, but none of the three looked towards the arena to see why. They were too busy staring. Sasuke, at a far wall, and Sakura and Naruto directly at Sasuke, waiting for his answer to Naruto's pleas and Sakura's well-reasoned advice.

Sasuke conceded, "I'll attack him once, to show my ability. Then I will forfeit. I do want to make chunin, you realize."

Naruto let out a huge breath of relief.

"Oh, and Naruto? We're talking about this after this exam is over."

Naruto nodded meekly.

"_Hinata Hyuuga is unable to continue! Neji Hyuuga wins!"_

Sasuke nodded to Sakura. "You're up. You'd better win."

"I'll win for the both of us so you don't feel so bad. Ooh, speaking of-" she reached for his bandoleer and plucked one of the scrolls from it. "-I need this!"

She bound away, and Sasuke called down the stairs after her, "it's boar tiger dog for that one!"

"I know!" she replied from several floors below. "It's got my stuff in it, after all!"

Sasuke rolled his eyes, regretting for the umpteenth time that he'd agreed to seal and carry his teammates' stuff.

* * *

><p>Neither Sakura nor Shikamaru moved when the proctor called for them to begin.<p>

"I noticed your team wasn't watching the Hyuuga match," Shikamaru said idly, as if they were having one of their usual conversations.

"Yeah, we were hashing some things out about our teammate that we didn't know about previously," Sakura replied, "but don't worry, we've got it figured out. Everyone's cool now."

Shikamaru nodded and then shrugged. "I kind of don't know how to do this fight, to be honest."

"You could always go the traditional way?" Sakura offered.

"What? Attack you? No, you're a girl. It's against my policy to hit girls."

Sakura put her hand on her forehead. "Are you a ninja or not? Fucking man up and fight me!"

"Troublesome…"

Sakura growled and threw a pair of kunai at him, which he dodged.

"Alright, alright!" Shikamaru grumbled, "I'll fight, but if you kill me you won't have anyone to play chess or go with!"

"Oh, I wouldn't kill you, Shika!" Sakura replied, grinning now, "Maybe maim you, but no kill strikes. Trust me, you'll be fine!"

Shikamaru turned and bolted for the small outcropping of trees, and skid to a halt behind one of them.

"Oh, jeez." Sakura grumbled in reply. "Are you doing that silly hand thing? It's just a placebo, you know! It only works cause you think it does!"

Shikamaru ignored her.

Sakura sighed, and pulled out the scroll she had stolen from Sasuke. This scroll held her three swords that she'd picked up from her first C-rank mission. She'd been training with a guy that Kakashi and Anko both knew- Gekkou Hayate- and he'd taught her some fun things to do with swords that wouldn't kill her opponent. (She'd specifically requested that he teach her such things, since her opponent was a fellow Leaf ninja.)

"Shikamaru, I'm giving you until the count of five to implement a plan, and then I'm coming at you with a pair of very sharp swords that I've only had a month of training with." She warned, and began counting aloud.

"One!" she made the sign for boar.

"Two!" Tiger.

"Three!" Dog.

"Four!" she slung the sheath of the sword with the matte black handle over her shoulder, in case she dropped one or both of the others.

"Five!" she gripped the brass-colored hilt in her left hand, and the silver-colored hilt in her right.

"Alright, I'm coming for you!"

She took three steps, and a shadow shot out at her. She leapt backwards until the shadow stopped. Then she drew a line in the dirt with the toe of her sandal (not with her sword- Gekkou would have killed her!) and grinned widely.

"Oh, you're taking me seriously, I see! Good! You might win at this rate!"

Shikamaru scoffed and shouted from the trees, "not likely! You're mean as hell!"

Sakura laughed. "Okay, you got me. I'm going to win, of course! I've got brains and brawn, and what better combination is there than that?"

This comment seemed to please the crowd, and they cheered for her.

"Aw, look, they like me! C'mon, Shika, let's give them a show!"

There was a pause before Shikamaru replied. "A show, huh?"

And then there was a small, round object coming at her, and she dodged it. It blew just behind her, and she realized it was a flash bomb. She moved to bolt, but it was too late- Shikamaru had captured her in his clan's Shadow Imitation technique.

"Well, fuck."

Shikamaru shrugged, and she was met with the surreal and highly disturbing feeling of her body moving without her command.

"Forfeit, please," he requested.

"… nah. You'll run out of chakra soon, and then I'll have a for-sure win."

"Can you really wait that long, though? You're an awfully impatient person."

She scoffed. "Please. You've met my teammates. I have to have an immense amount of patience to handle those two daily."

And so they engaged in a waiting game, much to the disappointment of the crowd.

Nearly thirty minutes of a mental chess game later, Sakura felt her hand raise.

"Wh- I told you, I'm not going to forfeit."

"Oh I know," Shikamaru replied, "I am. I forfeit. Sakura will clearly defeat me, and I have held her long enough that even if she were my enemy, my teammates could have killed her long ago."

"Shikamaru Nara forfeits! Sakura Haruno wins!"

Then his Shadow Imitation technique broke and his shadow returned to below his feet.

"You dirty trickster," she said, admiringly, "that was disgustingly low and I love it."

"Thanks? Please don't murder me in my sleep."

"I wouldn't do that. I wouldn't have anyone to play chess with."

* * *

><p>Before Sasuke reached the stairs, Naruto stopped him by grabbing his shirt.<p>

"Remember, one attack, then you forfeit. Our team wouldn't be the same without our grumpy puppeteer pack mule!" he said with a weak grin.

Sasuke nearly snapped a rude reply out, but swallowed it. Naruto wasn't the brightest after all, and he had made a confession about himself that had unnerved him, and even Sasuke knew that it had probably taken a lot out of the blonde.

"I know." He said instead, and smacked Naruto's hand pointedly.

Naruto let go, and Sasuke descended the stairs to the arena.

Gaara stood at one end with his arms crossed. The stance seemed less like a barrier and more like a taunt to Sasuke, and it took every ounce of his willpower to not attack him right then and there. Instead, he repeated Naruto's warning in his head like a mantra: He will kill you with no hesitation.

And he pictured Itachi's face. He couldn't die yet- he still had goals to accomplish.

"Begin!"

Sasuke summoned Blade from his scroll. If he only got one move to show off, it was going to be his flashiest one. He could only do it once a day with his puppet, and only that many times because he'd upgraded Blades sword-hands.

Blade's sword-hands gleamed in the light of the afternoon sun. Gaara stared at it blankly. Clearly the puppet didn't intimidate him, not even when the arena filled with the sound of birds chirping and lightning arced off of the short, fat blades in place of the puppet's hands.

The stands filled with Leaf Ninja began murmuring excitedly.

Sasuke ignored them. Using Chidori through a puppet took a considerable amount of concentration.

The puppet darted forward, and Gaara didn't flinch.

That was fine with Sasuke- it made him an easier target to hit.

And blade did indeed hit its mark. Though the layer of sand that flew up to block him a foot from Gaara's chest slowed down the strike, it only stopped the chirping electricity from punching through Gaara's shoulder.

There was a short beat, and then a scream.

Sasuke detached Blade's arm from the elbow down, abandoning it for a lost cause and reeling his puppet back in.

Sand began forming a sphere around Gaara, and Sasuke felt a flutter of fear.

"Proctor, I forfeit!" he shouted.

"Sasuke Uchiha forfeits! Gaara of the Sand wins!" the proctor shouted.

Sand lashed out at both of them, sending them flying, and chaos erupted.

* * *

><p>In the Participants' box, Sakura looked up at the suddenly quiet crowd, and realized they'd all fallen asleep. Then she looked up at the Kage box, where both the Hokage and the Kazekage were supposed to be sitting, only to see the box empty and a huge purple barrier technique being held on the roof.<p>

"Shit, we're being attacked!" Sakura breathed.

Temari vaulted the railing and landed near Gaara. She took up a defensive position with her fan, and was shortly joined by Kankuro.

"Naruto, Sakura, get Sasuke out of the arena and find your sensei. I'm going to find my team and see if we can't figure out what to do from there."

Sakura nodded, and they jumped down to the arena. Naruto landed on Sasuke's left, and Sakura on his right.

"What are you doing?" Sasuke demanded.

"Have you seen the Kage box recently?" Sakura asked in reply.

Sasuke looked up and ground his teeth. "Some sort of ambush, then?"

Sakura shrugged. "I think it's an invasion, actually. The people in the stands were put to sleep with a genjutsu, but you can't see that from here. We need to get to Kakashi for further orders."

"Right."

Sasuke yanked Blade close to him and sealed him up quickly, then unsealed Bella before the three of them jumped into the stands.

They were greeted by an old woman, and Sasuke instantly dropped into a defensive crouch.

"Oh relax, boy. I'm not going to attack you," the old woman said, and Sasuke stood back up. "are these your teammates? Sasuke-chan's told me a lot about you two in his letters to me."

"Are you…" Sakura hesitated, "Are you Elder Chiyo? From the Sand Village?"

"I am."

"And you're not attacking us… why?"

"Easy!" Chiyo smiled. "The Kazekage is an imposter."

Sakura stared at her in shock.

"Okay, okay," Naruto interrupted, "seriously, we need to find Kakashi-sensei. If you're friendly, you might as well come with us."

There was a familiar cough from behind them. "I'm right-"

Chiyo startled, and drew a kunai. "White Fang!?"

Sasuke jumped in front of Chiyo, hands held wide. "No! That's his son! This is Kakashi-sensei!"

"Oh. Okay then," Chiyo said, slipping her kunai back into her sleeve. "You could have warned me that he looked so similar to the White Fang."

An annoyed look crossed Sasuke's face. "I did tell you about him, Chiyo-sensei. I told you this in three separate letters."

She waved at him dismissively. "I'm old, boy, you can't expect me to remember such things!"

Sasuke rubbed his face tiredly.

Kakashi patted his head. "Alright, my cute genin. I'm going to need you three to-" His attention was diverted from them to a roof on the far side of the arena, where Temari and Kankuro had landed with Gaara supported between them.

"-Go after Gaara and his siblings."

"Bad idea. Gaara's a jinchuriki," Chiyo told him.

Kakashi nodded. "It's actually fine. Naruto can handle that. Can't you, Naruto?"

Naruto blanched, but squeaked out, "yeah. No problem!"

"Oh is he-?"

"Can't tell you. Hokage decree."

Sasuke scowled. "Kakashi-sensei, Sakura and I figured it out. We know he's the jinchuriki for the Kyuubi."

Before Kakashi could respond to that, the three of them dashed off after Gaara and his siblings.

"Those two have Sasuke-chan positively chatty," Chiyo noted.

Kakashi nodded. "It's good for him, though, I think. Loner genius kids are a bit rough around the edges when they don't have friends."

Chiyo eyed him suspiciously. "That sounds like experience talking."

Kakashi smiled at her innocently.

* * *

><p>Asuma sighed heavily when he saw Team Seven sprinting after the Sand Genin.<p>

"Team Ten, I need you to back up Team Seven," he ordered reluctantly. "Kakashi sent them off after the crazy sand kid and his team."

Shikamaru cursed. "Idiots, I told them he was dangerous. Ino, Choji, after me!"

Asuma allowed himself a second to watch after his student admiringly. If Shikamaru didn't end up with a chunin vest, he'd quit smoking.

* * *

><p>"Okay, look," Sakura said, "we're gonna have to take out the siblings first. They'll probably split up to bide time for the other to get Gaara to safety. Naruto, you'll need to go after Gaara no matter what, so who do you want backing you up?"<p>

"Uh…"

Sasuke interrupted. "I get Kankuro. I need to speak to him, and the easiest way to do that is through a fight."

Sakura looked to Naruto for confirmation.

"Yeah, I mean… I can fight with both of you equally good!"

"Equally well," Sakura corrected absently. "Alright, if Kankuro stays behind, Sasuke gets him. If Temari stays behind, I get her. The other goes on with Naruto-"

Three sets of footsteps approached, and Team Seven tensed for a battle.

"Relax, it's us," Shikamaru said, "and we're here to back you up. Sakura, I overheard your plan. Why is Naruto going after Gaara? He'll be ripped to shreds."

"No he won't." Sakura replied simply. "Alright, change of plans. Sasuke, you'd do well with Choji, and I work well with Ino. Shikamaru will go on with Naruto, which works out especially well since apparently they were friends and that might help Gaara change his mind about releasing his demon on us."

Naruto choked. "He won't release it all the way! He'd die!"

Sakura and Shikamaru turned their heads to stare at him.

"I know that," Sakura said, "but why do you?"

"… I asked the old man what would happen if that happened."

Sakura nodded thoughtfully. "Understandable. Alright, plan is set. Let's try and catch up now, shall we?"

* * *

><p>It wasn't long until they caught up with at least one of them.<p>

"I told you so," Sakura muttered. "Alright, Sasuke, Choji, this is yours. Catch up quick, would you?"

Sasuke and Choji stopped on a branch a few feet from Kankuro while the rest of Team Seven and Team Ten went on.

"Look, Sasuke-" Kankuro said.

"I don't want to hear it," Sasuke told him flatly. "Unless you're about to tell me that you're surrendering."

Kankuro shook his head. "No, but Sasuke, seriously kid, I didn't have a choice. If I disobeyed orders, I would have been killed. I literally saw it happen."

"Then surrender now and I will do my best to get you into protective custody."

"Are- are you going to hurt Gaara? I know he's fucking crazy but-"

Choji spoke up at that. "Not if me and Shikamaru can help it! Gaara might be off his rocker, but he's our friend!"

Kankuro paused. "Are you two the ones who calmed him down while he was here?"

"Was he crazier before he came to the Leaf Village!?"

Kankuro straightened, and sealed Crow away. "Alright, I'll go with you peacefully if you promise not to hurt my siblings."

Sasuke put his hand over his heart. "I will do my best to leave Gaara and Temari uninjured."

Choji tied Kankuro's hands, and led him away. Sasuke paused just a second to sigh in relief that he didn't have to kill a friend, and then was struck with the realization that he might have just narrowly avoided getting the Mangekyo Sharingan.

He moved on and easily caught up.

"That was quick," Sakura commented.

"Where's Choji!?" Shikamaru asked fearfully.

"He's fine," Sasuke replied. "Kankuro surrendered after I promised I'd do my best not to hurt Gaara or Temari. Choji is escorting him back to the Village."

Shikamaru's face hardened. "Damn right we'll do our best. Gaara's my friend."

"And Temari mine. But she won't be as easy to talk down as Kankuro was.

They ran into Temari in the next clearing, and she was standing over Gaara, with her fan open completely.

Sasuke walked out with his hands high.

"What do you want? I won't let you get to Gaara!"

"Nobody wants to hurt him, Temari," Sasuke told her evenly. "We just don't want him to destroy our village."

"if- if you kill him-"

Sasuke interrupted her. "It'll release the Ichibi. I know. I said we won't hurt him."

She shook her head. "You can't stop him. He's been given an order. He knows what happens if he doesn't complete his mission."

"What happens?"

Temari glanced to Shikamaru.

Shikamaru stared at her in surprise. "If Gaara doesn't destroy the Leaf Village, I'll be assassinated?"

"Yeah. At least, that's what he told us."

Shikamaru looked at Gaara's prone body. "Jeez. What a troublesome guy. Can I talk to him? Please?"

Temari glanced at them all nervously. "Just you. Everyone else stay back."

Shikamaru approached slowly, and plopped down on the ground next to Gaara, where he lay whimpering in pain.

"Hey, buddy," he greeted quietly. "I bet that hurts."

Gaara responded with a whine.

"Do you think you can keep your mother from coming out if I get you to a healer?" Shikamaru asked.

"She- she has to come out!" Gaara gasped. "Father will h- have you killed if she doesn't!"

Shikamaru grinned shakily. "How's he gonna kill me if you're protecting me?"

That gave Gaara pause.

Sasuke took a single step forward. "I know some basic medical skills. I can probably heal that, at least most of the way."

Temari snarled at him. "You're the one who gave it to him in the first place!"

"I wasn't expecting him to not dodge it at all," Sasuke admitted, "and besides, I had it at half power and his sand slowed it down enough that he didn't get more than a third of what a real Chidori would have done. It was supposed to be just for show before I forfeited."

Shikamaru touched Gaara's good shoulder. "Listen, I know you might not trust Sasuke right now, but I have never heard him lie."

"I can back that claim up," Sakura admitted, "he can't lie for shit, let me tell you."

"No," Gaara whispered, "he'll probably kill me because he hates _it _too."

Naruto, bolstered by everyone else's talk, stepped forward as well. "Gaara, I promise you he won't kill you because of the Ichibi."

"How do you know!?" Gaara screamed.

"Because he hasn't tried to kill me yet, and I'm the container of the Kyuubi."

Gaara stared at him silently for a long moment.

Then he looked to Sasuke for a longer moment, and he nodded jerkily.

Sasuke strode forward, and grabbed Naruto's sleeve as he went. "I'll need your chakra."

"But you hardly used any!"

"Yes, but this is going to be a somewhat intensive operation, and healing chakra is tough to make in the first place. I'll need yours to supplement mine."

"Oh. Why didn't you just say so?"

Sasuke rolled his eyes. "Just… put your hands on my shoulders and focus your chakra to your hands. Make sure it's _yours. _Whoknows what the Kyuubi's chakra would do to me…"

"Yeah, yeah, I'll make sure. Here, Gaara, pet Kitty while Sasuke heals you. Be gentle, though, she doesn't like hard petting…"

While Sasuke healed Gaara with Naruto and Shikamaru acting as nurses, Ino rounded on Sakura.

"Naruto is the Kyuubi!?"

Sakura growled and took a step towards Ino. Ino took three fearful steps away from Sakura.

"Let's get one thing straight. Naruto is _not_ the Kyuubi. He is the _container_ of the Kyuubi. He houses it. He is its jailer. It is trapped in a seal that is powered by his body and soul. You will never refer to Naruto as the Kyuubi in my presence or outside of it. Not only is this an S-Rank secret, but it's an incorrect statement."

"Then why does he wear a jacket with 'Fox' written on the back!?" Ino demanded.

Sakura shrugged. "He picked it up as loot on our first C-rank, which was a bandit clean-up. Bandits are dumb, so I suppose that whoever owned it first thought it made them look scary, since lots of people around here have been scared of foxes ever since the Kyuubi attack. I'm guessing Naruto picked it up as a lame joke, but then Kakashi-sensei told him to wear it. He has ever since."

Ino scoffed, but quieted down.

"Alright," Sasuke panted, "I think that's about all I can do. The bleeding is stopped, and I think I managed to sew up the muscle I tore. It should still hurt, but you're not in any danger anymore."

Gaara nodded tersely, and continued gently petting Kitty with his good hand.

"… I might have some strong pain pills." Sasuke offered grudgingly. He'd been saving them for Sakura, since she got hurt more than he did, and Naruto healed nearly instantly.

Shikamaru gave him a hopeful look, and Sasuke sighed and handed one of his scrolls to him.

"Third seal in, tiger monkey tiger," he said, and slumped against Naruto's side.

Shikamaru unsealed a pill bottle with three large, white pills inside.

"Just one," Sasuke advised. "It's extremely strong, and will put him to sleep if he takes any more."

Shikamaru stared at him in alarm. "Will one make him fall asleep!?"

"It might make him drowsy, but it shouldn't. Why?"

"Mother is released when I sleep."

Naruto hissed in sympathy. "That's rough. I guess that's what the big rings around your eyes are about?"

Gaara moved to shrug, but aborted the action when his shoulder twinged in agony.

"So do we just… wait here?" Temari asked, while Shikamaru shook out a pill and gave it to Gaara.

Sakura threw her hands up helplessly. "Look, we were just ordered to stop you guys. They didn't tell us how, but I expect they thought we were gonna have to fight. How were we supposed to fuckin' know you all would be buddies and this would end without bloodshed? I feel useless right now, let me tell you."

* * *

><p>They ended up waiting until Pakkun found them and told them to follow him.<p>

Kakashi, Asuma, and Chiyo stood at the gates. Kakashi refused to look at Naruto or Sakura while they gave him a quick debriefing. Gaara and his siblings were taken to the hospital by Chiyo, and Asuma escorted Team Ten home.

"Something's wrong." Naruto told Sakura quietly.

"No shit, something's wrong," she replied, equally as quiet, "the village was invaded."

Naruto shook his head. "That's not what I meant! He looks like- he looks like the time one of Hana's cousins got back from a bad mission. She wasn't supposed to tell me, but her cousin's whole team got wiped out."

Sakura froze. "No."

"Sakura, you said it yourself-"

"No, no, no. My dad isn't dead. Kakashi-sensei, tell me my dad isn't dead!"

Kakashi stopped in his tracks.

"Kakashi-sensei, tell me he's alive!" she begged.

"Sakura, I…"

She covered her mouth with her hand. "No. no, no, no, no."

"Your house was crushed by a summoned snake," Kakashi finally said. "There was one body. Uhei confirmed that your dog pack made it to the summon realm safely."

"No! Fuck, no!"

Sasuke placed a hand on her shoulder, and to his shock, she curled in towards his chest. He shot Naruto and Kakashi a panicked look, but started rubbing circles on her back.

"Naruto," Kakashi added, and looked away. "The Hokage fought Orochimaru on top of the Kage Box."

Naruto looked at the ground. "Orochimaru killed him, didn't he?"

"As far as we can tell, yes."

Naruto looked up at him, with fire in his eyes. "I'll kill Orochimaru. I'm going to get super strong, and then I'm gonna kill Orochimaru for the old man, and for Sakura's Anko-nee-chan, and then we're going after Itachi."

Kakashi smiled at him sadly. "What happened to becoming Hokage?"

"Oh, that's happening too, but I'm not ready for the hat yet," Naruto admitted. "And anyway, it wouldn't feel right getting it without avenging the old man, you know?"

Kakashi ruffled his hair. "The Uchiha Complex is mostly fine, including your house, Sasuke. Why don't you three go there? All genin are being given the next two days off so the Jonin and the chunin can organize things. I'm sure you'll get a mission after that, and I'll pull some strings to keep you three together if I can."

* * *

><p>Sasuke led Sakura to the bed- it had stopped being his bed when Naruto and her had first started spending the night- while Naruto scrounged up something for them to eat before they all passed out.<p>

He returned with three bentos that had been tucked away in the fridge.

"They're a little warm, what with the power being out, but I think they're okay to eat."

Sasuke nodded, and shoved one into Sakura's hands. "Eat or I will feed you like a child."

Sakura gave him a dirty look. "My dad might be dead but I'm not catatonic from grief. I can feed my fucking self."

"You haven't spoken in over an hour," Sasuke replied, "how was I supposed to know?"

She scowled, and started eating.

Sasuke let the silence sit until they were all finished.

"Naruto, Sakura."

They looked at him expectantly.

"If… If you want, you can both stay here from now on."

"Even if my apartment building is still standing?" Naruto asked curiously.

"Yeah."

"…Can my cats come?"

Sasuke rolled his eyes. "I suppose if they must."

Naruto smiled at him. "Thanks, Sasuke. You're a real good friend, you know that? A bit quiet and a bit weird, but a really good friend still."

"…I'm not sure I knew you could make backhanded complements."

"Fuck you, Sasuke."

* * *

><p><em>i'll always make sure to answer questions you all leave me in reviews (as long as i'm still writing, that is), so seriously, dont hesitate. i hate plot holes and you're all helping me avoid them! <em>

_also: serious question. after the tsunade retrieval arc, i was planning on doing an original arc, but i'm at a loss as to what. all suggestions will be taken in to consideration. thanks for reading and i hope you enjoy this fic!_


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